In the previous lesson I covered the Twitter lingo and guidelines to help you get familiarized with "Twitter talk" and understand what you should and shouldn't do to keep your account in good standing and preventing temporarily being locked or in the worst case, BANNED!

In this next lesson we'll discuss tweeting as that's the most important activity you'll be doing to get a good following. Remember, if you're account is not active people won't follow you because you won't be providing anything useful for them.

Tweeting Basics

There are 2 places where you can tweet. One is just above your timeline section in the middle of the page in your Home tab. The other is the blue Tweet button that will be on the top right of your page regardless of what page you're on in Twitter. The functionalities of both are the same so you can use either method to tweet.

When composing a tweet, you are limited to 140 characters (keep in mind that spaces are counted as characters) so short messages that get to the point are required. Tweets are public so anyone who has a Twitter account may see them by doing a search on Twitter. They will appear immediately on the timelines of accounts that are following you so it's a good idea to get as many followers as possible if you want to increase your online presence.

If you add a link in your post, Twitter's URL shortening service will automatically shorten it to save space. There are plans in the near future that links and mentions of user accounts in the beginning of replies will not count toward the 140 character limit but they have not implemented that as of this writing so keep in mind that mentioning an account, adding links, adding images, and adding video takes up some of the 140 character limit.


Cool Tweeting Features

There are some features that Twitter provides to help enhance your tweet.

The first is the ability to add an image or video. You can do this by clicking on the camera icon just under the "What's happening?" text box where you type your tweet. Images are a great way to immediately convey a message and grab people's attention as is video. Keep in mind that for videos Twitter just recently increased it from only 30 seconds worth of video to 140 (2 min 20 seconds) worth of video.

The second is a Twitter animated GIF. Twitter provides a set of fun animated GIFs to make your tweets more lively. You can add one by clicking on the "GIF" icon beside the camera icon. You'll be able to select a category or do a search. Once you see the one you like, simply click on it and it'll appear in your tweet. Keep in mind that a Twitter animated GIF takes up 24 characters from your tweet so you'll be left with 116 characters left.


The third is the ability to create a poll. Interaction is always a good thing and a poll is a good way to get interaction. Ask a question and provide choices and see which choice people will choose more. You can get creative with this to try and get more responses. Polls often get retweeted and shared with friends so it'll give you more exposure.

The last one is Location. I don't personally use this and it's actually disabled by default but enabling this allows you to add location information to your tweets. It can just be a general location such as city or neighborhood but can go as precise as your actual latitude and longitude coordinates. Please be cautious when tweeting with locations as you might not want to share things with others like the location of your home. You can read more about their location services here.


Why Tweet?

Why should you tweet? Twitter has over 300 million active users every single month and they have over 1 billion unique visits monthly to sites with embedded Tweets. Yes, BILLION! Isn't that enough of a reason to promote yourself or your site on Twitter? That's a HUGE market and even getting a tiny bite of the market can become very profitable.

Your tweets can go "viral". Meaning it will spread like wildfire as it gets tweeted and retweeted through people's account. Just imagine if one of your tweets were liked or retweeted by someone like a celebrity. They have millions of followers who are interested in what they have to say, what they like, what they're doing. One single retweet from them can mean huge traffic for you as it's very likely that their fans will like or retweet it as well. And we all know that you need traffic to make sales. More traffic, more chance of getting sales.


Capturing Attention

As you already know, Twitter has a huge user base so it's always flooded with tweets 24/7 as it's used worldwide. You need a way make your tweets stand out. You don't have much room since tweets are limited to only 140 characters so here are some tips on making yours stand out.

  • Personalize Retweets - when people retweet someone's tweet it's usually pre-populated with text so it's quick and easy to share. Make yours stand out by personalizing it and adding your opinion or comment to give followers context.
  • Ask Questions - questions are prompting for a response. Ask people their opinion like "Have you ever tried this innovative product?". It will get them intrigued and will increase the chance of them clicking your link, retweeting, or tweet you back.
  • Share Links Multiple Times - Twitter is flooded by tweets so your tweets won't have long shelf lives. People also live in different time zones so they may not see your tweet until later in the day. Because of this, you should ensure you get maximum exposure by tweeting your link more than once throughout the day. By this I don't mean sending out the same tweet over and over as it looks like spam. I mean send the same link but use different headlines. Be creative!
  • Have Personality - You don't want to send boring tweets. Show some personality and be creative with your tweets. Don't be like the rest and make your tweets stand out.
  • Trending Topics - the hashtag is used to tag topics and it's easy to see what topics are trending by looking at your Trends section on the left on your Home tab. You can also check out Trendsmap to see what's trending in your area. Use these hot trending hashtags in your tweet to gain more exposure.
  • Get Visual - A great way to stand out is by adding images or video in your tweets. If you look at the majority of tweets, they're all text. A nice image or video will definitely capture their attention.
  • Interact- Twitter is a social network after all, so the one of the best ways to get noticed is to talk to people. Remember every tweet is public and can be seen by every Twitter user and when you tweet someone with their username (ex. @QuakeKitGuide) it will show in their timeline as well as their profile so their followers can see them too. Don't wait for people to reach out to you. Make the first step and reach out to others. You'll be amazed at the response and exposure you'll get. Often times other people will join in on the conversation giving their input and again, remember that tweets are public so you'll get even more exposure with every new user that interacts with you.

Review

So today you learned:

  • Tweeting basics
  • Some cool tweeting features
  • Why you should tweet
  • How to capture attention with your tweets

Hopefully now you know a few tips on how you should be tweeting. Remember to be personable, use media, and interact. Just doing these simple steps will surely get you followers.

If you have any other tips and tricks you're using to make your tweets stand out. Let me know in the comments section below. I always like to keep learning new things!

And as always, if you have any comments or questions, leave them below.

In the next lesson we'll learn about Twitter lists and how we can use them to organize and group accounts.

Tasks 0/2 completed
1. Learn how to tweet
2. Learn ways to improve your tweets


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T1967 Premium
Hey hun, i was in the Twitter training and i noticed that i couldnt find anything on a poll post ....a follower of mine sent me a tweet and i had to choose which picture i liked best sunshine on the beach or sunshine in the hills....do you know how she did it? i asked her but she said a friend did it for her :-) can you help me please :-)
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yakitori Premium
No problem. Just answered you in the other thread
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T1967 Premium
got it :-))
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rachelannie Premium
I'm so grateful for this tutorial, I was really stressed about how to get it to look professional, and now it's set! I am worried that my stuff won't go viral, because I'm super fun but my personal stuff never goes viral, so how can I get my business stuff to? I would appreciate any and all advice! Thank you!
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yakitori Premium
I'm glad you found this tutorial useful. There isn't really a set way to make your tweets go viral because it depends on a variety of factors like when you tweet, if you use trending hashtags, and of course you need a captivating headline with image or video. Doesn't hurt to ask to be retweeted once in awhile as well as stats show that something as simple as asking gets you more retweets.

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.
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rachelannie Premium
awesome thank you so much!!!
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laurenjean Premium
Oh my goodness... what a BRILLIANT training!! No wonder you couldn't wait to get started on training! You know your stuff & convey it superbly well. I love the lesson on Twitter Lingo. (Younger, hipper) people send me messages in Twitter-speak & I always have to ask for an interpretation or google it. Now I have a handy reference! Thank you!
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?
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yakitori Premium
Actually I maybe spend an hour in the morning for 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.
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Ultimateless Premium
I am stuck with finding that Trends box..I wonder if we have a different set up in Australia...can't imagine why. Where my profile picture on the left I don't see a trends box or in the photo top right, there dropdown box doesn't have it either. Am I missing something Yakitori?
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Jim-Bo Premium
I've also noticed differences based upon regional and time (meaning twitter or other stuff online revamps themselves) so a tutorial made about xyz might look and feel completely different depending on when and where you're watching it.

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!
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yakitori Premium
Yeah that is strange that you don't see it. Maybe the account is too new so it takes a few more follows before it can show relevant trends.
Here are some other resources where you can find Twitter trends for Australia:
http://trendsmap.com/local/australia
http://trends24.in/australia/
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Ultimateless Premium
Thanks Yakitori. Just found out your name is Andi but I really like Yakitori, it sounds so commanding...respectful! :)
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yakitori Premium
haha it's actually Andy. Yakitori is actually a type of Japanese food, kind of like grilled pieces of chicken on a stick. It's very delicious and is one of my favorite foods.
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Ultimateless Premium
Just shows you the other person spelt your name incorrectly and I should have known better...:)
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yakitori Premium
Haha yeah I saw that too. No worries =)
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TomasB Premium Plus
Same here,I couldn't find the Trends box as I went through the lesson logged on to my Twitter account.I live in Southern California.Really a minor issue though,Andy did a great job with this training.
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yakitori Premium
Oh that's really weird. Is your account brand new or did you have it for awhile already?
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Ultimateless Premium
I have had mine for years...
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Grandma1945 Premium
I enjoyed your training and found it very very thorough and useful. I have been on Twitter for a long time but never advertise with it. I primarily use Facebook for that. I tried to order once using WA banners and such. The ads were rejected by Twitter. The only thing missing from your tutorial was how to get around using WA without get it getting rejected. I know Pinterest will also reject if you use an actual WA link. I don't know why the ads were rejected as I wasn't really given complete information from Twitter. Just curious. Comments would be helpful.
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Ultimateless Premium
The links aren't rejected..I use them on twitter with a picture of my own choosing..
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Jim-Bo Premium
might be better to link to your site? that way round you are getting valuable visitors to your site and your site filters many of the tire kickers.
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yakitori Premium
I agree. That might be the best way to get around it.
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Jim-Bo Premium
I posted your tutorial (a link to it) on my blog today to get you some more reach!
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yakitori Premium
Wow thank! REALLY appreciate it!
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Jim-Bo Premium
you deserve it matey, you did a good thorough job...
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yakitori Premium
Thanks! Means a lot to me as it's my first tutorial
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