Sometimes it can help to actually *see* someone using an application to grasp its possibilities as they may – or may not – apply to you. I’ve already written about where Twitter stands for me in the grand scheme of social media things. Here are three little screencasts to give you a quick visual overview of how I use Twitter.
Some things you should know before watching:
- My aim is to help anyone wondering whether it’s worth signing up, or anyone who has already signed up but is left wondering, “now what?’! Have a look and let me know what you think – is it helpful? Is this what you expected from Twitter? Is this how you use it? Who else do you know who uses Twitter in an interesting way?
- It’s not a complete introduction to Twitter. I start with the assumption that you’ve already signed up, or know how to sign up, and that you know how Twitter works in theory. (If you don’t yet know the basics then it might help to use Google to find an introduction that makes sense to you, or check out this one here.)
- It’s not a definitive guide to using Twitter either. It’s just a very quick walk-through of some of the ways I use it. At least, sometimes. Well, today, anyway.
- I’ve kept the screencasts very informal, very unscripted and under 5 mins each. I’m not a professional presenter and I have actual paying work to do today. So I don’t want to know if I’ve made any grammatical errors 🙂
(Click on the title below to open the screencast in a new browser window. You may need to scroll about to centre the action. I’ll try capture less screen next time… and maybe even embed 🙂 )
SCREENCAST 1: What Twitter looks like
A view of www.twitter.com from the inside out, i.e. once you’ve set up an account and have a community of people who you follow and who follow you.
SCREENCAST 2: Making Twitter work for you
A quick demo of TwitKit, a Firefox Add-on which helps manage your Twitter account. This is just one application from a veritable smorgasboard to help sort, aggregate, track and otherwise manipulate the information coming through your Twitter account. See here for a list of tools with marketing/business bent.
SCREENCAST 3: Tweet techniques to try
A run-through of some of my Tweets and how they’ve helped me. For example, to get local information, advice on social media, increase my blog readership, keep up-to-date with what’s happening in areas that interest me, etc. In other words, a Tweet doesn’t have to be about just telling people what you’re doing (although that can work too!).
As always, the best way to learn is to have a look at how others are using it. These guys are pretty frequent Twitterers, but are great examples of how Twitter can be used for different purposes:
- irishpolyglot: has several different Twitter accounts which he uses to Tweet (usually) the same message but to different followers and in different languages. Great way of reaching out to more than just the English speakers in the world – and of re-enforcing his online ‘brand’.
- matthewbennett: used Twitter to get feedback on features for a new social media project he’s developing, among other things. He’s doing a great job of building an audience engaged and interested in what he’s doing.
- pamslim: has used Twitter (along with her blog) to source case studies, anecdotes and other relevant content for a book she is currently writing. It’s also clearly keeping her in touch with a bunch of people she finds energising and inspiring.
Hi Sarah,
This is a great new way to explain social media! I joined Twitter recently, and I’m still figuring out how to make it work for me.
I’ve been reading through your past posts, and I have to say that I love the balance of translation/freelance/Internet articles you write. Looking forward to reading more!
Zoe´s last blog post… How $10 Can Actually Make a Difference
Me again! Without wanting to get all weepy, this post exemplifies the wonderfulness of the Internet for me – just as I was looking for more info on twitter and feeling rather lazy about it, a fellow blogger provides an overview which is not only simple and clear, but also extremely pleasant to follow. Thanks and see you on twitter!
ps: you can’t marry sushi, it’s mine.
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@Veens thanks for the read-a-thon reminder. I’m looking forward to it – I’ll be running a challenge too, so watch this space 😉
@Irishpolyglot thank YOU re: the compliment about keeping my accent! My family give me an awful ribbing about losing it after so many years overseas, so confirmation from another Irish person is always welcome 😀
And thanks too @céline, I hope the screencasts give you an idea of whether it’s worth investing time in, at least. Twitter has indeed attracted a lot of air-time over the past day or so – of course, all the hype makes me want to stress that it’s not necessarily the be all and end all that people make it out to be either… but then, I’m always wary of the push to adopt ‘must have’ gadgets and tools!
Well I never. Yesterday, one of my office buddies sent me a link to an article explaining the joy of twitter, which I had completely overlooked. Now this. I feel like someone, somewhere, is trying to tell me something… Thanks for this post, I can’t wait to have a look at your screencasts later.
céline´s last blog post… Google’s Translate Gadget
Thanks so much for linking to my twitter Sarah!! The way you describe it makes it sound so much more interesting than how I would 😀 “Re-enforcing my online brand” – I like it 😉
Your screencasts were excellent! Nice to hear your lovely Irish accent is going strong despite any ozzie influence 😛 Great post 🙂
Irishpolyglot´s last blog post… How to take as much as you like in your hand luggage
Hey I love Twitter 🙂
And I am on there, but this is a good tutorial for people who have no idea about it 🙂
I was here to remind you about the read-a-thon 🙂
Have fun participating!!
On Oct 18th!
For Read-a-thon
My BLOG