In this lesson I'll be talking about how to get started with Twitter. This means signing up, setting up your profile, and following some users. If you already have a Twitter account, you can skip ahead to the next lesson (Lesson 2: Account Overview). If not, I'll go step-by-step in the sign up process to get you started.
Signing Up for Twitter
Step 1: Fill Out Signup Form
The first step is getting a Twitter account. Click HERE to sign up for your account if you don't have one already. It should look like the form below.
Enter your full name, phone or email, and password and click Sign up. Make sure the email address is a valid one that you have access to because they will send you a confirmation email. If signing up by phone make sure the phone number entered has SMS (text message) capabilities as they'll send you a verification code to verify your new account.
Step 2: Enter Phone or Skip
The next thing you'll be asked to do is enter your phone number if you used an email to sign up. This is to make your account more secure as they'll send you a verification code by SMS to your phone to verify your account. You can skip this step by clicking on the blue "Skip" link under the big blue "Next" button.
Step 3: Choose a Username
Next you'll be asked to choose a username. You can enter your own or choose one from the list of choices they suggested. As you type, it'll tell you whether your username is already taken or not. Click "Next" when done.
Keep in mind the following when choosing a username:
- must be fewer than 15 characters
- it can't contain the words 'admin' or 'twitter' to avoid brand confusion
- it will be your identifier that people will mention you by so make it descriptive and related to you or what you are promoting (for example, mine is @QuakeKitGuide)
- your username will be the URL of your Twitter profile page (Mine is https://twitter.com/QuakeKitGuide) feel free to add me and I'll add you back!
Step 4: Upload a Photo
The next step is to upload a photo for your profile. Adding a profile picture makes the account more genuine so make sure you add a relevant photo of either a profile picture of yourself or business logo. Remember, you want people to interact with you and the more "human" you seem the more likely they'll interact (there are a lot of "bots" that just automatically tweet to spam content). Adding a photo doesn't really distinguish you from bots but it still helps rather than leaving it blank.
Step 5: Choose Some Interests
Next, they will ask you to choose some interests. You can either click on the interests that they chose for you based on your interests or you can search for something that's not in their list. This is more for their user recommendations that will come up later.
Step 6: Find Friends
Next they will ask if you want to find friends.
If you want to import contacts from Gmail or Outlook, just select either one and click Import contacts. A small window will pop up and ask you to log in to the account you want to import from and also request access to the contact list.
Once you allow access, the import process will begin. It may take awhile depending on how big your contact list is.
Step 7: Twitter Recommendations
The final step is that Twitter will recommend a bunch of accounts that you can follow based on your selected interests. You can click on the images and read their account description. If you like what you see or are interested in following them, just click the person icon on the top right of their profile box (highlighted in a red box in the image below).
You can also click the "Let me choose" button on the top right to search and choose specific accounts that you'd like to add.
Step 8: Your Account is Created!
Congratulations! Your account is created! You'll be redirected to your dashboard where you'll see a warm welcome message along with a bunch of menu options on the top which I'll get into in a bit later. You'll also see your profile info on the left where you can fill out more information. You should definitely fully complete that so people will know what your account is all about.
Review
So today you learned:
- how to create your Twitter account
- follow some accounts
It might not feel like much but it's actually a milestone! You're officially on Twitter! Congrats! Were you able to sign up? Have any issues? Let me know and I'll help you out.
If you have any comments or questions, please leave them in the comment section below.
In the next lesson, we will discuss setting up your profile and an overview of Twitter's features.
Top Helpers in This Lesson
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Here's an article about getting your tweets to go viral
https://blog.bufferapp.com/3-ways-to-easily-go-viral-on-twitter
but I think I pretty much covered it in my Lesson 8: Building Your Network section. You can also search for trending tags and see if you can take advantage of them.
I'll come back to this when I'm ready... it sounds very time consuming. I barely have enough time to add content to my sites. How many hours a day would you estimate you spend on twitter?
I talked about some good online tools that really help automating things in Lesson 8: Building Your Network.
I recycle my tweets with TweetJukeBox so it gets spread around without me having to manually tweet them.
I use CrowdFire to manage my list by adding back people who have interacted with me as well as removing those who have unfollowed me to maintain a good follow-follower ratio. You can also schedule your tweets with CrowdFire.
I use TraffUp to help get my tweets retweeted.
So everything is pretty automated. What I do in the morning is just check on my notifications in Twitter to respond to anyone interacting with me an add them if I don't already follow them. Then I do a search on Twitter for things related to my niche and retweet some of the interesting ones. Every time I have a new blog post, I will tweet it then I will add it to the TweetJukeBox queue so it'll get recycled automatically. Maybe if you don't have many tweets to recycle you should just manually do it for now but as you get a big list this definitely helps. Especially since you don't have to sit in front of the computer to post the tweet because it's scheduled automatically.
Read Lesson 8: Building Your Network for more info.
example when tey rolled out the video call feature in facebook about 5 years ago, they rolled it out regionally and gradually (to test it before just rolling it out world wide all at once.) it could be a similar thing!
here's an idea, try going through a proxy so your twitter account thinks you're in North america and therefore gives you the north american version?
use HOLA chrome extension for that....u can also watch tv from different countries with that...hulu, netflix, bbciplayer, anyone? lol
neat little extension that is! works a treat too!
Here are some other resources where you can find Twitter trends for Australia:
http://trendsmap.com/local/australia
http://trends24.in/australia/
