Twitter Tips

By Lynn Parsons

As promised, I'm making inroads into the world of social networking. Let's start with Twitter.

Twitter is a form of instant messaging that sents your 140 character messages to all your followers. For a more detailed video explanation, go here: http://www.freetwittertutorial.com/twitter-in-plain-english .

Why would anyone want to do this? While I can't believe anyone is interested in whether I'm about to mop my floor, occasionally I'm doing something interesting that I want to share with friends. I follow many people who make interesting observations about life, share news stories, give great tips, and make things more entertaining.

Setting up an account is free and fairly painless. Go to http://twitter.com/ and create a new account. If you're still struggling, go back to http://www.freetwittertutorial.com/twitter-in-plain-english and watch the how-to video.

Search Twitter for your friends and start following them. Post tweets that are timely, interesting, or funny. Your followers may retweet, or forward your tweets to their followers, which will encourage them to follow you. You can also post links to websites you like, news articles you think are important, or blogs you enjoy.

Have some fun with Twitter, and in my next post we'll cover advanced topics like what to do when Twitter is over capacity, how to use hashtags, making money with Twitter, and other helpful tips.

By the way, I'm @parsonslynn, and if you follow me, I'll follow you!