Twitter For Dummies, Pocket Edition (eBook)

Laura Fitton is the Inbound Marketing Evangelist for HubSpot. Michael E. Gruen assists startup com??panies by using cutting-edge technologies. Leslie Poston is founder of Uptown Uncorked, a social media marketing firm.

Introduction 1

About This Book 2

New for Pocket Edition 3

Foolish Assumptions 3

Icons Used in This Book 4

Chapter 1: Hello, Twitter World 5

Figuring Out This Twitter Thing 6

Signing Up 8

Picking a Name 16

Finding Contacts 18

Using useful people-finding tools 21

Searching by using Twitter Search 21

Inviting Contacts 23

Tweeting Like a Pro 26

Saying Hello! Your First Tweets 27

Chapter 2: Getting Your Tweet Wet 29

Finding People to Follow 30

Look who's talking 31

Searching for people 32

Using the Search Box 34

Inviting people personally, through Twitter 35

Checking out Twitter Lists 37

Following back 38

Following People 39

Replying to Tweets 40

Retweeting 42

Retweeting the old-fashioned way 42

Commentary on the retweet 43

Twitter Directories 44

Understanding Twitter Protocol 46

Deciphering language and abbreviations 48

Engaging others on Twitter 49

Tweeting frequency 50

Creating Lists 51

Following lists 54

Using geolocation 55

Erasing your tracks 56

Deciphering Twitter SMS Commands 57

Sending a direct message 57

Sending a follow message 58

Sending an @reply 59

Using On/Off commands 59

Making a tweet a favorite 59

Seeing stats 60

Using the Get command 60

Seeing profiles with Whois 60

Using Leave 61

Using On/Off username 61

Using Quit and Stop 61

Codes may come, and codes may go 62

Chapter 3: Flying Around the Interface 63

Starting Out on the Home Screen 64

The sidebar 66

The Tweet box 67

The Twitter stream 68

Tweeting to One Specific Person: @Replies 70

Sending Private Notes via Direct Messaging 73

Playing (Twitter) Favorites 75

Seeing Who You Follow 77

Who's Following Who? 79

Reviewing Your Tweets 80

You've Been Listed 84

The User Multi-Face: Interacting with Twitter Every Which Way85

Text messages (SMS delivery) 86

Desktop clients 88

Echofon 89

Widgets and gadgets 89

Preview: @Anywhere 90

Chapter 4: Twitter Minus Twitter.com 93

Tweeting with Your Cellphone 94

Via text messaging 94

Via smartphones or PDAs 96

Location! Location! Location! 97

Using Twitter through Your E-Mail 98

Swimming Your Stream with RSS Feeds 101

Grabbing RSS feeds 102

Sending RSS feeds back to Twitter 102

Chapter 5: Establishing Your Twitter Voice 105

Business or Pleasure? 106

Your business on Twitter 108

You as you on Twitter 109

Mixing business with pleasure 110

Identifying Your Audience 114

Viewing your network 115

Diversifying your network 116

Targeting specific networks 117

Measuring influence 118

Understanding your extended network 120

Keeping Your Tweets Authentic 121

Joining the conversation 122

Sharing links 122

Image is everything 124

Being genuine 125

Evangelizing your causes 127

Keeping Twitter Personal but Not Too Personal 127

Protecting personal details 129

Maximizing privacy and safety 130

Chapter 6: Ten Useful Twitter-Based Services 131

BreakingNews 132

StockTwits 132

Tweecious: Use Delicious to Organize the Links You Tweet 132

Tweetworks 133

ExecTweets 133

TweetGrid 134

LinkBunch 134

Tweetree 135

TwitterGrader 135

BLIP.fm 136