Kendal

Twitter is a website where you can leave messages of up to 140 characters long for other people to read. Think of it as an online equivalent of sending mobile phone SMS messages. The messages will instantly appear on your page in the form of a timeline (newest messages at the top going down to oldest at the bottom).

Setting up A Twitter Account

It is very easy to set up a Twitter account and here’s how you go about it. Just go to http://twitter.com/signup. Fill out the form on the page including your desired username, and click “Create My Account” button. By clicking the button also means you agree to the Twitter Terms of Service and or Privacy Policy.

You’ll be asked if you want to import your contacts from places like Gmail – this is purely voluntary though and you can skip this part if you want to.

You can start following people you know or topics you are interested.

You could personalize your Twitter account for you to stand out and make an impression, personalize your profile as much as possible.

1. Upload a photograph to your profile. This is the first thing you can do. Adding a photo adds some personality to the page and stops your profile from being just another boring URL. You can use a logo or comic figure that reflects your personality if you are really uncomfortable with your photo being on the net.

To add your photo, go to “Settings” then, “Profile” then add upload your desire photo.

2. Add your website or blog URL. This is good advertising for your site.

Go to “Settings”, “Profile” and then add your website or blog URL in the box provided.

3. Add your location and a one line bio about yourself. It is worth filling this in with something relevant or perhaps witty which will again attract the attention of visitors to your page.

4. Select a “theme” for your profile. Twitter offers various default backgrounds to choose from, if you like them but I not, you can add your own customized personal background.

To do this, go to “Design” tab, and scroll down to “Change background image” then upload your own wallpaper.

If you don’t like the standard backgrounds being offered, you can always try out “My Tweet Space”. You can use this to make a better looking background.

Finding More Followers
The fastest way to find followers is just to tweet regularly with interesting insightful comments, answer other Tweeter’s messages to you and generally be polite and courteous on the site. If you do that, people will start to follow you in no time as good quality Tweeters are hard to find sometimes, so when one raises to the top, everyone follows them.
There are many websites offering to give you lots of followers instantly without any much. These are scam and should be avoided.
When you are starting your account for the first ti,e, you are asked if you want to have Twitter scan through various accounts such as your Gmail account to see if anyone there is a Twitter user. They could then potentially be added to your followers list. It is not recommended because:

• It means giving a website access to your email account
• Just because someone is in your Gmail contacts list doesn’t mean they should also be your Twitter follower

The best way to get started are to contact your best friends and closest colleagues yourself and find out if they are on Twitter. You can then exchange username and manually add one another yourselves. If you have friends who are online most of the time, they may very well be on Twitter already. After that, based on what direction you want to take your Twitter account, you can search Twitter directories for like-minded people and people in your profession.

Publicizing Your Twitter Username
There are many ways in which you can show your Twitter username to the public. You can add your username to your calling card. This can be a great way to “network” a business functions and parties and it gets your Twitter username “out there” for people to find.

You should also put your Twitter username on as many websites as possible. FriendFeed offers you the possibility to put your Twitter feed through the site and they give embeddable widgets showing your Twitter logo. People can then click on the logo and will be taken straight through to your page.

If you have your own name domain, put your Twitter feed through your own site. Twitter offers a few alternatives themselves, but you can always make your own if your have the knowledge. Or if you have a WordPress blog, there are plenty of plug-ins offering the chance to put your Twitter feed on your blog page.

You can get Twitter name badges for your site as well. The best one is “Twitter Counter” and you can get either a small chicklet or a large button.

There is also “Twitter Follow Badge” which you can use in your site. This is a small “follow me: box which moves down the page as you scroll. Clinking on it will bring you directly to your Twitter page.

Another fantastic one is “Twistamp” and its design is sleek and professional and you can put a lot of information on it. Twitstamp can include your Twitter name (obviously the most essential detail), your picture, location, site URL, short bio, your last tweet and the number of followers and the number you are following. You can also choose between dark background and a light background.