Twitter – the next level
Earlier this week my boss started using Twitter. She got herself up and running and then called me in for some help with a few things. Watching her get started made me realise that I needed to revisit my post Twitter - the basics and provide you with some more tips. Now I know it's been done before but there are some folks who read this blog that don't read Mashable and the like. So here goes.
Blocking
When my boss signed up her first follower was someone like "celebritysex101". Clearly if you're going to be presenting yourself in a professional capacity you don't want a follower like this. So how do you get rid of them?
- Click through to your list of followers from the sidebar of your homepage or profile.
- Next to each follower, who you don't follow yourself, you will see these buttons
- To block a follower it's simple, just click the block button and follow the steps to confirm the action.
Retweeting
I'm finding that as I'm following more people I'm retweeting more and more. The principle is simple - when you see a tweet you like and want to share it with your followers you retweet it. The image below shows an example of a retweet.
Retweeting is easy, all you need to do is copy the content of the original tweet, preceded by RT (so that people know it is a retweet) and the original tweeters username (to give them the credit). If you've got space I always like to add a comment of my own afterwards just to give it a personal touch and show why you are retweeting.
Shortened URLs
When sharing links on Twitter you don't want to eat up your character allowance with a lengthy URL. So why not use a URL shortener such as TinyURL or bit.ly to help you save some space. All you need to do is copy the original URL, paste it into the box on the site of your chosen URL shortner and hit go.
Twitter quick links
I noticed something new in the sidebar of my Twitter homepage when I logged in this morning.
TwitterDictionary
At first I thought it was an interesting addition of a random definition from the Twitter dictionary. On closer inspection I discovered that it was a quick link of sorts to some of the extra functionality. So far there is just a link to the search feature and one to create a widget to embed your tweets on other sites. What next?
Phil Bradley has questioned whether it's a precursor to the appearance of ads. I like to remain optimistic and hope that Twitter will remain ad free.
I'm not yet seeing another change which Phil comments on; the addition of some extra options in the menu bar at the top of the screen. With all the to-do about the changes to the Facebook homepage at the moment I wonder how this small ammendments to Twitter will go down...
Twitter – applications
Following my recent post, Twitter - the basics, here's a follow up with details of some applications you can use to make posting to twitter and organising your tweets easier.
iPhone/iPod Touch applications
TwitterFon
This is the application I've been using on my iPod Touch. Download it from the iTunes store. It's easy to set up and has a clean and simple interface. It highlights new tweets in your timeline and new @replies.
Twitterific
This was the first application I used when I got my new iPod but I had trouble getting it to show just the tweets from the people I was following.
PocketTweets
Not tried yet
iTweet
Not tried yet
Alternatives for other mobile devices (BlackBerry, Windows Mobile)
Desktop clients
TweetDeck
Provides the basic functionality to let you read and publish tweets from your desktop. This client also allows you to group the people you are following and create searches so you can receive tweets matching your selected criteria.
Twhirl
Allows you to cross-post your tweets to other sites such as Facebook and MySpace, post images to Twit Pic and create and save searches using Twitter Search and TweetScan.
Further reading
How to use Twitter on the go from Mashable
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