Let’s talk about Twitter for a bit. I touched on the very basics of Twitter in a previous post, Twitter Crash Course; however there is a little more that I’d like to discuss about it. Twitter is about socializing online and with many people at once. It is known as a social network. You make friends by following people and they follow you back and all that. The main point is to engage others in conversation or thought.
Many people have joined twitter only to share information with others and will rarely engage in a conversation. I have done this at times while away from the internet or short on time. I only post links to things and do not have the time to follow up on any conversations those links may have sparked. While that is ok in a sense, it is not a good idea to only use Twitter in that way.
Did you know that you can receive tweets to your cell phone like a text message? Did you also know that you can send tweets from your phone just like sending a text message? If not, you can. First of all, make sure that you have a text messaging package on your phone that will accommodate your tweeting activities without costing you an arm and a leg! Even if you choose to not receive tweets to your phone you can still send them, just text your tweet to 40404. It is easier to set that up while at the computer but is possible to do from your phone, just send your first tweet to that number and it will walk you through the rest.
If you have a smart phone...well you can either use the texting method or you can find an app that is compatible to your device and take your mobile tweeting to a whole new level. (Hootsuite mobile app allows you to have multiple accounts logged in even!) There are way too many different mobile apps for Twitter for me to even think of going into how to use them all. If you are using a mobile app you can always find a FAQ section on the site you downloaded the app from to help you get started.
If you choose to use the texting method of tweeting on the go, just log into your Twitter account and in the upper right portion click on Settings, then click Mobile. This is where you can turn mobile tweets on and off, as well as see a list of texting commands that you can set from your phone. You can also set individual people to get their tweets via text or not. If you have more than a handful of people you follow you will more than likely want to choose those you interact with most, rather than choosing your entire list of people you follow. If you get stuck on how to do this you can always go back to Settings and Mobile and read down the right hand side to review how to turn mobile tweets on and off.
Now that you know that you can tweet from your phone and how to do so let’s talk about why you would want to. No one really wants to know what you are eating through out the day unless it is really rare or scrumptious. However, what you eat can start conversations. So, if what you are eating is interesting to you or you want to engage others in a conversation about food or something along those lines...by all means tweet it!
Tweeting while you are out and about brings a new level to the conversations that you can start and participate in via Twitter. Rather than just sitting at your computer relaying links back and forth you can actually talk to others about activities that you are taking part in. If you see a beautiful sunrise or sunset maybe describe it and ask others to share what they are seeing at that time. Or better yet...take a picture of it and send it to something like Twitpic so that everyone can share in what you are seeing. Or even take a video using Qik (or one of the others) and share the video through Twitter. Using Twitpic and Qik are up to you, those are just the ones that I use, but there are many others out there that you can find and use.
Just be safety conscious while sending tweets, pictures or videos to Twitter (or anywhere else for that matter). If you do not want to divulge your real location or identity then don’t take pictures of yourself or anything that will positively identify your or your location. Another thing to check on is the geo-tagging of pictures from your device. This can give away your location as well.
So go out...have fun...tweet about it...start a conversation...ENGAGE!
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