In terms of technology, 2009 has been the year of Twitter: Stephen Fry, Jonathan Ross, Phillip Schofield, Chris Moyles and many many more celebs have all started tweeting - the mind boggles.
If you want a quick overview watch this BBC clip:
According to the lovely Hitwise UK people traffic has trebled in 2009 and in the top 100 of UK visited websites. And you can see why it's happened, Twitter has been all over the mainstream media: Radio 1, The One Show, Daily Mail, Telegraph, New York Times etc. You have to have been living under a rock for the last month not to have been tempted to sign up and find out what all the fuss is about!
Although the Twitter-celebs are fun to follow and its their stardust that has propelled Twitter into the digital stratosphere for me its the normal folks that are getting onto Twitter that I find so fascinating. Friends that I would never in a million years have thought would be interested are signing up in droves. And I think that's great.
There have been many many article of the Etiquette of Twitter, this is a great one from David Pogue at the NY Times who advises "don't worry about the rules", so without wanting to simply repeat his smart write-up, here are some thoughts from a veteran Twitterer.
FYI, these are thoughts or tips rather than rules!
1. Write your Profile:
I can't stress how important that is. When someone Follows me, I click on their link and this is the first thing that I read. I enjoy following new people, but I want to follow people who I think will be interesting, funny and smart (not necessarily all at the same time, but you get my point) If there's no profile and I don't know you in real life then I am not going to follow you back. Just think of it like introducing yourself to someone new at a party, its the beginning of a conversation.
2. Find, Follow, Forward:
Its flattering when someone follows you back (and I am discounting all those Auto-Follow folks, this seems to be playing the old MySpace "how many friends can I build up as quickly as possible" game), so you should add people if they sound interesting. You can always un-follow them and they won't know. If you read a great Tweet and think that others will be interested forward it aka Re-Tweet it (RT), always saying who you got it from.
3. Be Useful, Be Interesting, Be Engaging:
Its the same rules that I often talk about for digital planning. Twitter is a community or rather hundreds of thousands of small personalized micro-communities. Don't over-tweet, some people at the start seem to tweet every 3 minutes. But when you find something genuinely interesting or funny, tweet it - add the URL. If someone tweets a question that you can help with, tweet back and answer. Its a conversation.
And that's it really.
Like all technology it takes a bit of time to get your head round it, so give it a go. Stick with it. Follow my tips (or don't) and see how you find it. Personally I agree with David Pogue, I think that Twitter is "powerful, useful, addictive and fascinating."
Have fun!
Come and say hello: www.twitter.com/Amelia_Torode
Yes, incredible how Twitter has exploded in the UK this year - I hadn't seen the OneShow clip so thank you for sharing.
I'd love to know the real stats. We are all quoting the Hitwise headline, but I believe the Hitwise figures only take into account visits to the Twitter website. They can't monitor Twitter usage through tools such as Twhirl / Tweetdeck or access from mobile. Given that everyone I know uses Twitter through an app, I would think the actual traffic is significantly larger than even Hitwise are suggesting!
Posted by: Nick Burcher | Friday, 13 February 2009 at 02:11 PM
I signed up today and feel like an old person in the crossfire of a loud conversation. Am I being dense? It seems like all the famous peeps on Twitter are typing replies to their followers which don't mean anything to others, so you just get deluged with messages that you can't follow. Everybody seems to love it though so I'm sure I am missing something...
Posted by: Rob | Saturday, 14 February 2009 at 09:43 PM
Rob, as we chatted about on email Twitter does take a bit of getting used to! My recommendation to you would be make sure that in the Settings bit your choose the @Replies option that you want. Let me know how it goes!
Posted by: amelia | Tuesday, 17 February 2009 at 09:20 AM
Great tips Amelia. Like the party conversation analogy. I get quite a few responses which sound a bit automated. The welcome reprieve was a lovely one from Aleks!
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Posted by: AdamAN | Tuesday, 17 February 2009 at 11:45 AM