Thanks for reading my Ultimate Guide on How to Use Twitter!

This is going to be a comprehensive guide that will help you get started with Twitter and also teach you how to use Twitter. It doesn't matter if you've never used it before because I'll be walking you step by step on how to get started. If you're already a Twitter guru hopefully you can still find a trick or two that I use to make my use of Twitter more effective. But first off, let's see what Twitter's all about.


What is Twitter?

A quick intro about Twitter. Twitter is a social media network like Facebook, Google+ or other social media networks you are familiar with but they work a bit differently. It's a way for you to communicate and stay connected with quick 140 characters or less of text, photos, videos or links called "Tweets".

Just to give you an idea of how HUGE Twitter is, they have over 300 million active users every single month. They have over 1 billion unique visits monthly to sites with embedded Tweets. That's pretty darnn huge and you can imagine how much exposure just one single Tweet will have with so many people on there.


Why Should I Use Twitter?

Like I said, Twitter has a huge user base and you have the potential of instantly reaching a ton of people through this social media network. If you are selling or promoting anything you know that traffic is key. Without any traffic, you won't be selling anything. Twitter allows you access to their huge user base and gives you an easy way to reach them.

Have you every heard of the term "Viral" marketing? You might be thinking of the medical term and thinking of a virus which is what this term is based upon. A virus can infect a host which in turn can spread the virus to other people who in turn infects other people and spreads rapidly.

This exponential growth can be applied to Twitter. When you post a tweet, your tweet can be "Re-Tweeted" or "Liked". This displays your tweet on the user's timeline of who made the action which means it's exposed to all their followers. Now let's say a couple of their followers like the re-tweet and in turn re-tweets it. Now it will show up on their timeline and is exposed to their follower list. Can you see the power of this? You can easily see how your tweet can be exposed to thousands of people in an instant! All this traffic can equal sales!

If you already have a website you can see that it's not easy doing SEO and getting your pages ranked high. If you don't get your page on the first page you aren't going to get very many hits. Twitter is a very effective way to get traffic and not have to worry about SEO. You can gain followers quickly and start promoting right away. Remember that even 1 retweet exposes your tweet to their network. That's a lot of potential traffic just from a single tweet! I'm not saying NOT to do SEO because SEO is very important. I'm saying it's better to have different streams of traffic so you don't solely have to rely ONLY on SEO.


What Will This Guide Cover?

There's a TON of stuff to learn about Twitter but I'll go over the features that make it most effective for us. This will comprise of 10 lessons.

We'll cover a variety of topics that include:

  • Lesson 1: Getting Started - Step-by-step guide on how to signup for Twitter
  • Lesson 2: Account Overview - An intro on how to setup your profile setup and account overview
  • Lesson 3: Twitter Lingo and Guidelines - Explain basic Twitter terminology like RT, TT, etc as well as go over what you can and can't do on Twitter
  • Lesson 4: Tweeting - Information on how to tweet, use of links, images, videos, hashtags, retweets, likes
  • Lesson 5: Lists - Lists - group accounts for better use
  • Lesson 6: Keyboard Shortcuts - learn how to navigate Twitter efficiently
  • Lesson 7: Searching - Learn how to search effectively in Twitter
  • Lesson 8: Building Your Network - Tips and tricks on what I did to get followers including free tools that I've used
  • Lesson 9: Twitter Ads - Paying to promote on Twitter
  • Lesson 10: Twitter Analytics - Analyzing your Twitter account

Information Overload

There's definitely a lot to cover so I broke it down into a "Course" style where you'll go through lesson by lesson, completing each one before moving on to the next. Hopefully I've made it easy enough for you to follow but if you have any questions along the way, feel free to leave me a message in the comment section below on each page.

If you have any comments or questions, please leave them in the comment section below.

Now let's get started!

Tasks 0/3 completed
1. Learn what is Twitter
2. Learn why you should use Twitter
3. Learn what this course will cover


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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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