Scott Hanselman

UPDATE: Want more advanced Twitter Tips?
We're having loads of fun over on Twitter. I've blogged about it before and how it's a conversation starter, a message bus, a subject tagger and conference organizer and a link sharing service. It's a river of uselessfulness and truthiness. It's a permanent cocktail party where you know some folks, and don't know others. Some are famous, some are your friends. There's a the constant background of overheard conversations, except on Twitter, it's socially acceptable, nay, encouraged, to jump in. No need to say, "oh, I couldn't help but overheard, excuse me but..."

A Twitter Glossary

UPDATE: Readers point out there's also a very good "Twictionary" that's much more complete at http://twictionary.pbwiki.com/ so check it out also!

Tweet

When you say something on twitter, it has to be under 140 characters. That's a hard limit. What you say is called a tweet. It's a noun and a verb. "Oh, I saw this tweet..." and "He was tweeting all day."

Alternatively, some folks say "twittered" as in "I am twittering" and "I sent a twitter." I would say this is not typical.

Twitter is permanent (so far) so every tweet has a permalink. That means that every single tweet you put out there is now something that can be linked to, for example, this one: http://twitter.com/shanselman/status/1178002576. This immediately makes twitter different from IRC or other chat systems. That tweet is public and it's out there and it's web searchable.

I have always said, don't give bile a permalink. If you're a jerk on Twitter (and you care) it's in the record. Tweet positively.

Twoosh

A twoosh is a tweet that is exactly 140 characters, no more no less. You've maximized the size of your tweet. Some folks believe this is a sign of skill. You'll tweet and learn that it's usually luck.

Tweeple

People on Twitter. 'Nuff said.

Tweetup

When Tweeple meet in person.

Twitter Client

While you can read tweets and tweet yourself at http://www.twitter.com and http://m.twitter.com on your phone, most folks use a Twitter Client that talks to the Twitter API. Just like you can read your email on the web, but many folks use an email client.

There's lots of them...here's the top 100 twitter clients.

Me, I like:

• Windows Mobile - Tiny Twitter - fast and small and basic.
• iPhone - TwitterFon - simple and clean, lets you do everything you can on the web and more.
• Power User - TweetDeck - powerful as it lets you have multiple columns for search terms you want to monitor.
• Most Pretty (Vista) - Chirp - Missing some functionality, but it's gorgeous.
• .NET Educational - Witty - A free open source client for XP and Vista written in WPF

I use TweetDeck the most.

Followers and Following

When you "follow" someone, you are saying you want them to appear in your "timeline" of friends. I follow something like 500 people. It's like subscribing to a blog you're interested in. However, I have more than 500 people following me...but (here's the important part) I don't need to follow everyone back.

If you follow everyone and keep some 1:1 ratio between who you follow and who follows you, that will render your main timeline useless. Follow who is interesting to you, but make sure you can see the @replies from folks you don't follow. This leads me to:

@replies

When you want to reply to someone, you hit the little reply arrow in your client or on the web. The client will insert that users name with an @ sign, like @shanselman. It will also populate some hidden metadata indicating which tweet you were replying to. It's helpful to reply to specific tweets as it makes the conversation easier to follow later. Often newbies reply to the most recent tweet, but then make reference to tweets from days before.

For maximum social-ness, the first setting you should change when you sign up for Twitter is your @replies setting. Set it to show replies from anyone rather than just the replies from people you follow. Otherwise you'll miss out on a lot of the conversation.

I can see your replies even if I don't follow you. You don't need permission from me or anyone to reply and jump into a conversation.

Search.Twitter.com

If you want to watch the replies for a Twitter user that is not you, you can use http://search.twitter.com or a new column in TweetDeck. For example, here's me: http://search.twitter.com/search?q=shanselman. By searching for the string "shanselman" you can see both replies as well as mentions, like http://search.twitter.com/search?q=hanselman. Often new folks try to reply but mention your name rather than correctly using the @shanselman syntax.

You can also subscribe to an RSS feed for search.twitter.com queries. But it's not just for ego-surfing. I also watch for diabetes and asp.net. You get the idea.

Retweet or RT

When you see a tweet you really like, you can "retweet" it. Usually newbies will over-retweet, so watch for that.

The idea is that if @foo has 100 followers and @bar has 100 different followers and @foo retweets @bar's tweet, the idea is magnified, and may go viral.

If you care, there are tools to measure and track retweets. I don't care. I'm in it for the conversation and the sharing. If something strikes you as awesome, retweet it. Many Twitter clients have a "retweet" button now that will do this for you.

Twitter #Hashcodes

Sometimes you'll see a tweet like

Having fun at #mix09

or

bill gates mosquitoes / unleashed on #ted audience / where is the 'green' deet #haiku

The hashcode is an informal way to "tag" something to a category or categories. For example, the second tweet there refers to both the Ted conference and marks the tweet as a Haiku. (Haiku on Twitter are called "Twaiku" but that's pretty geeky. ;)

Hashcodes can help you be social at a conference like #oscon or #mix09 but they can also create informal "chat rooms" like for the show #lost or to find folks that share a common interest like:

any #women out there who are #runners? Trying to get some more ideas for my blog.

When I got to a conference I always ask around for the conference hashcode, then create a search so I can find out where folks are hanging out. It really enhances the experience.

Tiny URLs

Since you've only got 140 characters for a Tweet, it's really important that you not share large URLs. Nearly everyone on Twitter will use a URL shrinking service like http://bit.ly or http://is.gd or http://tinyurl.com. Funny, TinyUrl is positively HUGE!

Make sure your client will automatically shrink URLs. Most do.

Sharing Pictures with TwitPic

There are a lot of services that "orbit" Twitter. They aren't Twitter, and they usually aren't affiliated with Twitter, but they enhance the service, like the tiny URL makers above.

One of these services is TwitPic. It has an API that lets you attach a photo from your client, then it'll include a tiny link to that photo. Some clients can even extract the photo seamlessly. British entertainer Stephen Fry used Twitter and Twitpic and a mobile phone recently to tweet his way to safety whilst trapped in an elevator, er, lift.

Direct Messages

These are exactly what they sound like - private tweets between two people. The only trick here is that you can only "DM" people who follow you.

Integration with Facebook and other Social Sites

Facebook has "Status Updates" and my friends think I update my status all the time. In fact, there's a Twitter Facebook application that you can add to your Facebook Profile so that your Facebook Status is updated with your Tweets.

I find this to be fun as it allows topics to fire up inside Facebook and lets folks who aren't on Twitter get in on the conversation. Other social sites like FriendFeed and Live.com have similar features.

Overwhelmed?

Most people try out twitter, follow a few people, tweet some, get confused or bored and never come back. Totally understandable, as it's all a big secret handshake.

Here's what I suggest.

1. Sign up
2. Pick a Twitter Client (see list above)
   • Don't set the client to bother you (sound, notify, etc) every time something happens. You'll go nuts. I set mine to notify on replies only. I check the "river of tweets" whenever I feel like it. It's an interrupt, remember. You'll never keep up with all the tweets. You'll never have fun if you try to drink from the firehose, so don't. When it bothers you, shut it down. When there's a fun topic happening, jump in.
3. Pick at LEAST 20 people or more to follow.
   • Mix it up. Follow people in all of the things you're interested in. For example, don't just follow programmers, or famous people, or news sites.
     I've seen folks follow just a few people, then get frustrated because they feel one person is dominating their "tweetstream." If you follow just me and @codinghorror, you'll immediately hate us both because it'll seem like we tweet all day. (I don't, honest) If you have enough people, it'll seem more like a cocktail party with lots of folks talking, as opposed to a lecture by two obnoxious dudes.
   • There are many famous people on twitter but there's also lots of useful bots and news services. For example, @cnn, and @npr, but also companies with Twitter specific discounts like @DellOutlet.
     Another example: I wrote a Twitter-bot that posts funny things that my 3 year old says (or yours!) and cute things that are OverheardAtHome using the totally automated Twitter name @overheardathome.
4. Watch for other interesting people to follow.
   • If someone you follow seems be having a conversation with someone you aren't following, why not use the "Follow" feature of your client to listen to that new person. You can always unfollow them.
5. Tweet smartly.
   • Here's a list of the top 50 most shameful tweets.

Have fun! See you on Twitter. I'm @shanselman.

About Scott

Scott Hanselman is a former professor, former Chief Architect in finance, now speaker, consultant, father, diabetic, and Microsoft employee. He is a failed stand-up comic, a cornrower, and a book author.

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