A Beginner's Guide to Twitter (by a beginner!)
16/05/2011, Author: Maria Gardner
As I’ve spent the last month or so blogging about stuff I know really well, so for a change I’ve decided to share my thoughts on something I know nothing about – or at least very little until recently.
I’ve been aware of Twitter for a few years but never was that bothered about it. At the beginning it seemed like something just the cool kids or IT/Social Media geeks did. It also seemed like a repetition of providing a Facebook update. What was the point? My life felt perfectly complete without it.
Then, a few of my friends on Facebook started tweeting (note: the verb ‘to tweet’ is the action of posting an update on twitter). The banality of the posts ‘just home from shopping’, ‘had a lovely day with Mum’, ‘having Branflakes for breakfast’ just vindicated my scorn for yet another unnecessary social media platform. I felt smug in my stance of refusing to jump on the Twitter bandwagon.
So what changed? It started when some of my colleagues and friends started mentioning how they were using Twitter in a more useful way. They were using it to network, gather information, and even find a job. Wow, that’s impressive! Suddenly, Twitter started to seem more interesting. But at this point I’m so busy I was struggling to keep my LinkedIn profile up to date – not to mention keeping in touch with the parents to let them know I was still alive! I concluded that I was just too busy for Twitter.
But a couple of months passed and a Twitter advocate came into the Criterion fold. She talked in such an animated way about ‘retweeting’ this, that and the other (note: this is the action of reposting a tweet someone else has already made), gaining new followers (note: these are the people who sign up to receive your tweets), and posting links to my blog (note: you can follow links to websites from people’s tweets) that I suddenly felt like I was missing out. At this point I downloaded a Twitter application for my phone but had no idea where to start – I thought I should wait to receive some expert guidance. To be honest, I felt a little intimidated.
I didn’t quite get round to waiting for that expert guidance. Caught up in the moment during a key note speech at the recent ABP 2011 conference (#ABP 2011 note: that’s how you make reference to a keyword so other Twitter users can search for it) I decided to throw caution to the wind and sign myself up for a Twitter account. Shockingly it was really easy! I wrote my first tweet. That was really easy too. I searched and found a couple of my friends. Also easy. Clicked a button to say I wanted to follow them. Simples. Twitter where had you been all my life? I spent the rest of the conference happily tweeting my views on the sessions and even posted a couple of pictures via Instagram (note: You can link Twitter to your Facebook, LinkedIn status as well as software that takes and posts pictures).
The reality is I’m still very new at this Twitter malarkey. I’ve figured out the basics but I’m far from a slick and experienced operator in the land of Twitter. Luckily, this afternoon I have an appointment with @realCriterion’s (note: the @ sign is used when referring to a fellow Twitter user) expert, Uzma Afridi!
In the meantime, follow me @mariagardnerUK and I’ll let you know how my twitter training session went!
If you find this post offensive please contact us
Comments
No Comments
You must be logged in to leave comments. You can register here».
