Twitter is a useful social networking tool that we often use to drive traffic to our websites, to run competitions and to build online communities in conjunction with other social networks such as Facebook and Flickr (a photo sharing network).
Twitter allows users, once they have created a profile, to post short messages of up to 140 characters to their followers. Cape Town Tourism in particular has used Twitter to great effect and currently has about 900 followers.
Here are some basic tips to use Twitter effectively:
1. Following people who follow you on Twitter is a great way to increase your exposure on the tool and build your social network.
2. If you are tweeting a URL, shorten it at www.tinyurl.com so that it’s easy for people to retweet you, and so that you still have characters to play with.
3. The retweet button (at the bottom-right of each tweet) is a quick and easy way to “retweet” someone automatically. It’s important to retweet, to show people that you are engaging with their conversation. There’s nothing more exciting on Twitter than checking who’s retweeted or referred to you (push the @whateveryourTwittername is button on the right-hand side of the screen).
4. Tweet as often as you can (even if it’s once or twice a day) as you are much more likely to gain new followers if you tweet regularly.
5. Organise the people you follow into lists for more efficient tweeting. Create a new list by clicking “New list” on the sidebar.
6. Use Twitpic – a third party application – to post pictures on Twitter. You don’t need to create a new account for Twitpic – just log in with your Twitter username and password and share your photos.