JTPratt’s Guide to Twitter

What is Twitter? What’s a ‘tweet’? This is my guide and review of twitter for bloggers!

Last week, I was minding my own business reading my favorite blogs when I came across Alan’s Affiliate Confession posts Twitter Doesn’t Suck Like I Thought it Did. I had heard the name “twitter” a lot, but had been avoiding finding out what it was actually all about. I mean – who needs “yet another” thing to do?! Was it a new facebook, linkedin, stumble upon, digg – I didn’t know, I had no idea what it was (and could really care less). God forbid it turns out to be the next “blogrush” or “Agloco”, if you know what I mean. I respect Alan’s opinion, he hasn’t steered my wrong yet, and if he says I should check it out – just like in the comment I left on that page, I “must” check it out. So, I went to twitter.com and signed up.

Once I signed up I still really didn’t know what it was I had signed up for. Like Alan’s post – most things I read about it told a bit about why people thought it was handy or cool, but not much about what it actually was. So, for the uninitiated (like I was), here you go…(if you already know twitter, keep reading too – because I have cool tools for you as well).

What is Twitter?

Twitter.com is a “new” kind of social networking. I new (ack!) you’ve heard this before. Really, it is. It’s breaking new ground – and I can describe it in just one word: MICROBLOGGING

Twitter does for the web what the Nextel walkie talkie did to revolutionize the cell phone. Yes, it’s that good. Imagine communicating with hundreds, or even thousands of people instantly, non-invasively, and it doesn’t require (but can use) IM or email. It doesn’t compete with your blog, it enhances it. And it can be integrated with nearly every other social networking tool you are signed up for. Are you intrigued yet? Good…

Get yourself a free twitter account and you get your own twitter home page:

At the top of the page you see an “update” box. On the right hand side, note the number “140″. I believe that’s the exact number of characters an SMS text message is limited to. Every time you write a “post” in twitter you are limited to 140 characters. That’s why a call twitter “microblogging”. The small nature of the messages is probably also why each time you “update” it’s called a “tweet”. Writing multiple posts is “tweeting”.

So, you have your own twitter home page – now what? Well, you can customize it and finish filling in your profile with your info and pic. I want you to take note of the right sidebar when you’re logged, like the example to the left from my profile page on twitter. You have the option to choose either web or phone updates. That kind of threw me for a loop at first. Phone updates?

I should have seen this coming. My daughter and son are text message crazy on their cell phones, so much in fact I had to get the unlimited plan for all of us. I had predicted for years that someday cell phones, computers, home entertainment systems, car stereos – all of it would converge at somepoint into all kinds of hybrid type devices. So – I chose “phone updates” just to see what would happen.

Next I had to find people to “follow”. I’m not going to get any updates on my phone if I don’t “follow” anyone – it’s kinda like having a feedreader without any rss feeds in it. You can search for people by keyword, or by email address, or you can just click “follow” on someone’s web site if they have twitter updates on their blog. I typed in “wordpress” and clicked on a few to follow, and then added a few bloggers I knew were using twitter now. So now I knew what twitter was, but it was time to try and figure out what I could do with it…

Page 2: What Can Twitter Do for ME as a Blogger?

So, now that I have a twitter account it’s time to find out what it can do and whether or not it will be another web tool I use a few times and throw away or not. Now that I have an account, I wrote a few updates, but it’s not like a got a response back or anything. Then I decided to get the “badge” or whatever puts the updates on your sites. To display twitters on your blog, you (of course) just need a badge. Twitter works with myspace, facebook, blogger, typepad, or nearly anything else with HTML or flash widgets. You can choose from a simple one, a fancy flash one with pics, or a simple text based one.

I tried to use the second flash based one at first, but it just never seemed to display right. So then I went with the HTML one, but decided to go poking around for some WordPress specific tools. I found that Alex King has a plugin called “Twitter Tools”, so I downloaded and installed that (it’s WP 2.5 compatible). Even his plugin page didn’t tell a lot about what the plugin did, so I installed it to find out. Turns out, it had some pretty cool options:

So, as you can see you can turn your tweets into blog posts, or even a daily digest (like I do). So this is the first thing to note: Twitter updates can be turned into blog posts, which equals most indexed pages for you! You can choose the category, tags, header, and order to have “tweets” displayed in a widget in your sidebar (like I do). You can even have a box displayed (for admin only) under your tweets to post an update directly from your blog! So – now not only are twitter updates I write posted in my sidebar AND my twitter home page, every day they are listed in a “digest” blog post automatically with no intervention from me. Twitter Tools will also send twitter an update automatically every time you write a new blog post, and that’s the next thing twitter is good for: promoting your blog posts to your twitter ‘followers’!

Next I found “Twit This”, which is a little button you can put on your post pages, and anyone with a twitter account can just click and tweet about your post! This is the next thing I found twitter can do: help you promote your blog as other people tweet about your posts.

So, as I’m installing these plugins my phone goes off a few times, and I got some text messages. I got a couple from doshdosh and one from AffConfession, and I thought it was really neat because the messages were updates on what they were doing. doshdosh was talking about whether or not to buy a Wii, and AffConfession said he had hired somebody to write 15 articles for one of his sites through Freelance. Microblogging is all about random thoughts and what goes on behind the scenes. It takes your regular blog to the next level. What I mean is, for your twitter “followers” it can make it more personal for them. People reading your tweets may have a better understanding of who you are, what you do on a daily basis, and they will connect with you on a level that your “about” page could never describe.

This type of “personal” connection is what every online marketer has dreamed of for years, because everyone knows that building a “brand” and making a “connection” with people is what makes conversions soar! On the bulk of the web (like myspace), the ads have a conversion rate that I’m sure is an abyssmal 2-3% CTR or click-through-rate. On many blogs (especially niche ones) you can get 5-8% conversion or CTR because the ads are more relevant to what people are looking for. But when somebody like (adsense marketing guru) Joel Comm says he has a 20-30% conversion rate on his email list, it’s because he has (over time) been able to make a connection with his “following”. He’s built up a trust factor over time where people will actively buy the products he reviews and recommends. If you are serious about blogging and making money on the Internet – it’s very important that you understand what a service like twitter can do for you in this regards. It’s the first “social media” tool I’ve ever seen where you can build a “list” (following) automatically just writing a bit every day and integrating it into your blog and work habits.

Like any other tool, shady shysters will eventually get ahold of it for black and grey hat things, but that doesn’t mean you can’t also take advantage – using it for good old fashioned marketing to build your online business. Just don’t abuse it, or your following will of course die off.

Page 3: Will I Tweet Myself to Death

There are a LOT of people on twitter, and much like all the social networking apps before it – it’s snowballing rapidly into the “next big thing”. How many people are tweeting right now? Well, someone put together Twitt Earth just so you could watch them in real time live! Now that I’ve been using Twitter for 6-7 days, I begin to wonder “will I tweet myself to death”? I mean, the first day my cell phone vibrated 20-odd times from incoming twitter updates. You should have seen the look on my wife’s face, like “how old are you?” At one point during the night she said “that’s just ridiculous – this has got to stop”. But as time went on, and I got tweets on my phone in the car, at work, in the grocery store, mowing the lawn, doing the laundy, eating dinner, and taking out the garbage – I have to admit, it wasn’t that invasive. When I didn’t want to read them I ignored the phone (and they were there for review later). It was really cool getting updates from other bloggers when I was away from the computer.

The second night I had a twitter account I had to go to a dinner at my daughter’s high school. I knew that with twitter you could not only receive text message updates, but send them as well. So, I sent 4 updates to “40404″ while at the dinner, and sure enough – when I got home they were all 4 on my twitter home page AND on my blog sidebar! Wow, I really realized what power twitter had that day. In 30 seconds I can send an update (from my cell phone) to every “follower” I have on twitter, my twitter home page, AND my blog all at once! It doesn’t replace my blog – it enhances it! But here again, if I didn’t have a blog at all, I could STILL use twitter for all kinds of things.

My concept of what twitter is good for is confined to how I see using it as a blogging and online marketing tool. But imagine how teens are using this? Salesman could use this, realtors too. Celebrities, bands, politicians, they could all use twitter as well with great results! I just don’t see how twitter won’t become the next “YouTube” if the next year+ if new users come in and do what I think they will.

Can you become “addicted” to twitter? Sure, just as much as facebook, myspace, or anything else cool online. What sets twitter apart is the fact that you can completely customize and control how and when you use it. You can send and receive updates via cell phone as I’ve described, but rember the “web” option I told you about in the beginning? With the web option you can send and receive updates via IM or Instant Messanger. So, you don’t have to use a cell phone at all. Or you can turn “on” phone updates when you’re away and turn them “off” again when you get back home. You can also just update and send tweets from twitter.com. You can even download and install twhirl, which is software specifically designed to send and receive tweets (like an IM client). New ways crop up each and every day to use twitter.

The whole key is to adapt twitter to the way you work, and over time figure out whether or not (or when) to use phone updates, the web, twitter.com, etc. I read Darren Rowse at ProBlogger turns his twitter off when he writes blog posts (so he’s not interrupted). Twitter has a much longer lifespan (in my mind) than mySpace, Facebook, or LinkedIn because of what it does and how it works. It’s the first web tool I know of that takes blogging to a new level – even away from the computer. The only thing that will take this to the next level (and it will happen just as soon as we all get better phones) is the ability to “tweet” in both video and audio from our cell phones and gadgets. That will literally explode both podcasting and blogging like you’ve never seen before!

If I have convinced you to try twitter, sign up and follow me!

If you have something to add to this post, or a question – please comment now!