I want all of you to subscribe to Twitter, as a platform to discover, track and disseminate information it’s unparalleled and if properly used it can be a boon to anyone searching for a way to spread an idea.

Before you head into the field, however, I want to arm you with some essential tools that will help you make the most of your Twitter experience.

Jeremiah Owyang

From, “What Web Strategist’s Should Know About Twitter”

Best Practices

The savvy Twitter user realizes that the effective communications aren’t just ‘pushing’ content to readers, but they will also dialogue and converse with others by replying to them. I use this tool as a global chat room, responding to others, building relationships, and listening in. Like blogging, the rule of anti-marketing marketing is required for success, engage your community. Unlike traditional forms of advertising and marketing, Twitter is “opt-in” meaning that users will ‘follow’ a twitter account, abuse will result in a user unsubscribing. For rules of engagement read Brian Oberkirch’s Advanced Twitter: Don’t Tweet Like A n00b.

Academhack

From, “Twitter For Academia”

Track a Word: Through Twitter you can “track” a word. This will subscribe you to any post which contains said word. So, for example a student could be interested in how a particular word is used. They can track the word, and see the varied phrases in which people use it. Or, you can track an event, a proper name (I track Derrida for example), a movie title, a store name see how many people a day tweet that they are at or on their way to a Starbucks. (To do this send the message “track Starbucks” to Twitter, rather than posting the update “track Starbucks” you will now receive all messages with the word “Starbucks.”)

Rule Based Writing: Related to the above is the idea that when you change the rules (context) around any written communication you necessarily change the content of such an utterance. Rules rather than hindering communication can actually be really productive (for the long version of this argument read about Oulipo). Because Twitter is based on SMS technology it limits communication to 140 characters, it is surprising what develops out of this limit, and how quickly one starts to think in messages of 140 characters.

Geekpreneur

From, “10 Cool Uses Of Twitter”

6. Desperately Seeking Answers?

Poor guy from Houston, Texas, is stuck in Toronto for a business trip and feels like eating a big juicy steak. No panic, this is where Twitter Answers kicks in. Ask a question and receive answers from other users like you. The service works even from your cell so you can get answers virtually anywhere. Once you’re back home, switch sides and reply to desperately seeking answer users.

Copyblogger

From, “Twitter Marketing”

3. Engage in Fascinating Conversation

Following along the last point, Twitter is best when you’re engaging your followers rather than updating them with the mundane details of your life. Think about this as a digital networking event, party or cocktail hour. Talk to people on Twitter the way you would if you were in a group. Save private conversations for Direct Messages.

Dosh Dosh

From, “Ways You Can Use Twitter

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Personal Branding. Twitter is a social media platform you can use to build your personal brand. It has the primary benefit of developing a casual persona and establishes you as a social personality that is connected and approachable. As Twitter adoption increases, new users will be drawn towards well established Twitter personas.

Time Management and Analysis. Twitter can simply be used to keep a detailed record of what you are doing every daily. This might be boring for others but this type of usage is useful when you want to analyze how you spend and manage your time.

ReadWriteWeb

From, “Twitter For Journalists”

Quality Assurance

I’m not ashamed to admit that I do QA via Twitter. We often get feedback on misspellings, missed links and other publishing faux pas very quickly via Twitter. It’s an easy way for readers to offer quick feedback.

Twitter can work really well for tech support or for finding quick answers to small tech questions. That makes it great for filling in details you can’t quite remember. “What is that technology that does the toast-like popups on Mac desktop?” I asked when writing an article last week. Within minutes several people reminded me it’s GROWL. Thanks!

There’s a general sentiment of giving on Twitter, but a journalist’s opportunity to perhaps provide later coverage can’t help but further incentivize people to provide help.

Problogger

From, “How To Use Twitter: Tips For Bloggers”

Don’t be a self centered Twitterer

Over the last couple of weeks I’ve been twittering from my feed reader and Tweeting the best links and posts that I find on other people’s blogs.

The tool I use for this is this Firefox add-on (and alternative is this one). In a sense what I’m doing is ’speedlinking’ to posts about blogging.

What I’ve found in doing this is that I get a lot of replies and direct messages from followers thanking me for these links and asking me questions about them. It seems to be helping my own profile and perceived expertise to be seen to be across what’s going on in my niche.

I think it also helps to balance the Tweets that I’m doing that are more self serving (pointing links to my own posts). My Twittering becomes more about the niche of blogging about blogging and less about me - I think that this is more useful to my followers.

I guess what I’m saying is that if you’re using Twitter to promote yourself or your blog (and this is fine) then it might be worth considering how you can add some variety to your Twittering by also promoting the quality work of others (note: don’t just link to others for the sake of it - keep the quality high and links relevant).

Guy Kawasaki

From, “How To Use Twitter As A Twool”

Forget the “influentials.” You must buy into the theory that products and services reach critical mass because mere mortals spread the word for you. This defies the common wisdom that a handful of “influentials” shape what the rest of us try and what we adopt. In the online world, these influentials include Mike “I can go a week without Twitter” Arrington, Robert Scoble, Seth Godin, and to some extent me.

Reliance on influentials is flawed because the Internet has flattened and democratized information. Influentials don’t have as much special access, special knowledge, and distribution as you might think because of the growth of websites, blogs, and, of course, Twitter.

This doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t care about influentials—if nothing else they can help you get to what some consider “nobodies.” But mark my words: (a) Nobodies are the new somebodies, and (b) it’s better to have army of committed nobodies and than a few drive-by somebodies. The most somebodies can usually do for you is a one day bump in traffic.

One more point: if enough nobodies like what you do, the somebodies will have no choice but to write about you. In this way, the buzz of nobodies begets the attention of somebodies and not vice versa.

Twitter Tools

Tikirobot - Sync your ichat status with Twitter, useful for the Mac users in the audience.

Twitterfon - A clean, simple and effective mobile phone Twitter application.

Tweetdeck - One of the best desktop Twitter clients on the market. Built on Adobe AIR.

Twittercal - Update your Google Calendar straight from Twitter.

OverheardIt - Find out what people are “overhearing” using this filter. You never know what interesting information you might pick up before anyone else.

Remember The Milk - Helps link everyone’s favorite ToDo list with Twitter.

If you need more tips or any other kind of help don’t be afraid to ask me.

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