How to use Twitter like a real pro

Get more out of Twitter with the following tips and tricks. It’s often considered a must do social networking technology and if you don’t know how to manage Twitter, you may just fail to reap the benefits it provides.

Below you will read about:

• Get Started, Find Deals, Manage Groups
• 5 Ways to Find Relevant Followers
• 5 Free Tools to Spring Clean Your Twitter Account
• LinkedIn and Twitter Partnership: Do's and Don'ts for Users
• Coping With Social Media Burnout

Get Started, Find Deals, Manage Groups

Rick Broida

Twitter may be a household name, but it remains a mystery to many people. Perhaps even most people. This week I'm going to put on my teacher's cap and show you how to set up a Twitter account, how to put that account to good use (you can even use it to enter contests and win prizes), and how to read your incoming "tweets" (messages) from just about anywhere.

Get Started with Twitter in Three Easy Steps

What the heck is Twitter? In a nutshell, it's a messaging service, a way for one person (or organization) to communicate with others in 140-character blasts.

What do you do with Twitter? If you're feeling narcissistic, you can send out messages of your own, on whatever subject you like, to anyone who chooses to "follow" you (i.e. subscribe to your Twitter feed in order to read your message). At the same time, you can "follow" others (friends, family members, Shaquille O'Neal) and read what's on their minds.

There's no cost to using Twitter, and signing up for an account won't fill your inbox with spam or anything like that. So why not give it a try? Here's how to get started:

1. Open your Web browser and head to twitter.com.

2. Click Get started now.

3. Complete the signup form. Keep in mind that your selected user name will become your Twitter "address," so put a little thought into it. (The form will tell you immediately if your desired name is already taken, at which point you'll have to think of something else.)

4. Click Create my account and you're good to go.

You're now an official member of the, er, Twitterverse. Let's find something interesting for you to follow. Click Find People, type pcworld, and then click Search. Our Twitter feed should be the first result that appears. Mouse over the accompanying icon of the little person and click it to follow PCWorld. (Don't worry, this isn't a permanent marriage. You can always "unfollow" us later if you want.) Now click Home and you'll see all the latest tweets from PCWorld's editorial staff.

Three Ways to Make Good Use of Twitter

When it comes to Twitter, I prefer to be a consumer, not a producer. In other words, I know no one cares what I had for breakfast, so I don't bother to tweet about it.

However, I do care what famed astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) has to say, because it's usually interesting and educational. So he's among the select few Twitter users I follow. And therein lies my point: Twitter can actually be a fun, informative, and even practical tool--provided you follow the right people. Here are my three favorite uses for the service.

Find deals. Love bargain hunting? Twitter takes the actual hunting out of the equation, instead dropping deals right in your lap. It's just a matter of following the right sites and bloggers. Here are a few to get you started: @cheapskateblog (mine!), @FreeStuffUS, @dealsplus, and @bargainbabe.

Keep tabs on celebrities. Call me star-struck, but I think it's cool to get messages from the likes of Aziz Ansari, Jimmy Fallon, Paul Feig, and my personal music hero, Brendan Benson. Makes me feel like we're buds. If there's an actor, comedian, musician, or other famous person you admire, head to Twitter, click Find People, and then follow that person. It's fun!

Manage a group. As the coach of my daughter's soccer team, I need a quick and easy way to contact all the parents in case of scheduling changes, rained-out games, and the like. By getting everyone to "follow" me (and receive my tweets via text message), it's a snap to communicate with the group.

Access Your Twitter Account on the Run

Now let's look at ways you can access Twitter without being tied to your PC. For starters, if you have a mobile phone (doesn't have to be anything fancy like a Droid or iPhone), you can take advantage of Twitter's SMS features to send and receive tweets.

Open Twitter in your Web browser, click Settings, and then click Mobile. Follow the instructions to pair your phone with your Twitter account. With that done, any text message you send to 40404 becomes a tweet.

You can also elect to receive tweets via SMS from selected people you follow. However, because standard messaging rates apply, high-volume tweeters could end up costing you. Also, frequent SMS interruptions can prove annoying. My advice is to receive SMS tweets only from important, news-bearing sources.

A better bet all the way around is to find a Twitter app for your phone--assuming your phone runs apps, that is. They're available for all the major platforms: Android, BlackBerry, iPhone, WebOS, Windows Mobile, and so on.These apps let you tweet, retweet, send direct messages, view your feeds, and so on.

Next: 5 Ways to Find Relevant Followers

Page Break

5 Ways to Find Relevant Followers

Kristin Burnham

Twitter has more than 100 million users, which means you're bound to encounter a lot of noise. You'll find brands hawking their products or services, some users tweeting the mundane details of their everyday lives and spammers insisting you check out their "hottest new pix!" Um, no thanks.

But within all that noise are people who can bring you value—whether it's an interesting perspective on an event, an exclusive offer, or an announcement from a figurehead from a competing business. The tricky part is seeking these people out. The good news: tools can help you find the right followers.

Last week, Twitter announced a new feature that suggests to you users to follow. With this announcement, Twitter joins a growing number of Twitter directory sites that work similarly—enter a keyword or location, and the site will generate a list of new accounts to follow. Here's how Twitter's "Who to Follow" feature works, and a look at four other sites that will help you build a more meaningful Twitter following.

1. Twitter's "Who to Follow"

How to use it: Log on to your Twitter account and click "Find People" from the main toolbar. This will give you three options to find new accounts to follow. With "Find on Twitter" you can search for people, organizations or companies that you know have a Twitter account.

The "Browse Interests" tab will give you a list of categories to choose from —for example, business, entertainment, family, health, music, politics and sports. Click on any of these categories to generate a list of people related to the category. You can follow them directly from this page. The "Find Friends" tab asks you to enter your e-mail address and password to find e-mail contacts who are on Twitter. This tab will also generate a list and let you follow the users from this page.

2. WeFollow

WeFollow's directory gives you several methods to search for new followers. Its homepage lists the users with the most number of followers for each category, which include celebrities, music, social media, entrepreneurs, news, bloggers, tech, TV, actors and comedy. Clicking on any of these top users will bring you to a stats page, with the user's number of followers, how many they're following, the number of updates and the tags they're listed under.

WeFollow also lets you enter tags into the search bar to further narrow down your search for users to follow. Additionally, WeFollow lets you add yourself to its directory, which helps others find you, if your interests align properly. To do this, click "Add yourself to WeFollow, and enter the interests that best describe you.

3. Twellow

Twellow (think: YellowPages for Twitter) grabs publicly available messages from Twitter.com, then analyzes and categorizes each of the users responsible for those messages, helping you find suitable people to follow.

There are several ways you can use Twellow. You can browse for users to follow based on category; keyword and "TwelloHood," in which you use a map of the world to zoom in on users from a specific location. Twellow also generates an extensive list of suggested users and lets you follow them without leaving the site.

4. Geofollow

Geofollow offers many of the stock Twitter search features—keyword, username, tag, etc.—but it's specialty is finding users based on their locations. Search for new users to follow based on city, state or country and "bulk follow" the ones whom you find interesting. Geofollow also lets you tweet, message users and view their avatar directly from its site, as well as add yourself to its directory.

5. Twibs

Just as Geofollow focuses on location, Twibs focuses on finding (and listing) businesses on Twitter. Log in to the site and search among its 25,000-plus businesses, or list your business so others can find it more easily. (You'll be asked for your Twitter username, four keywords that describe your business and whether you want your business e-mail, blog or online store displayed.)

Next: 5 Free Tools to Spring Clean Your Twitter Account

Page Break

5 Free Tools to Spring Clean Your Twitter Account

Remember that Hubspot statistic that revealed that almost 56 percent of Twitter accounts are not following anyone? Or the one from Harvard Business Review that stated that 10 percent of active Twitter users are responsible for 90 percent of all the tweets? If you have a Twitter account, the chances are good you've accumulated a sizeable number of deadbeat users.

Manually sifting through your followers to identify these users could take hours. That's why several sites have sprung up to help you take back control of your Twitter account. These sites scan your followers and generate a list identifying which ones haven t tweeted in a while so that you to remove them accordingly. Check out my top five picks for free sites that help you efficiently restore order to your account.

1. ManageTwitter. With ManageTwitter you're able to sort your Twitter contacts based on who's inactive, who tweets more than five times a day and who tweet less than once a day. You can further subdivide these lists based on the date you began following someone, their username, number of followers or their time zone. ManageTwitter also features a mass select and deselect action for unfollowing users.

2. Tweepi.

Tweepi's "Cleanup" tool gives you five options for organizing the people you follow on Twitter. You can sort according to which of your followers are most active, which are most influential, how frequently they retweet others, how often they engage in discussions (measured by their number of @replies), and their follower-to-following ratio. Tweepi also lets users weed out "linkless ramblings." In this manner, you can select which users you want to follow back or unfollow entirely.

3. TweetSpinner.

TweetSpinner offers a wealth of functionality. Its Direct Message inbox tool finds and archives messages older than seven days and searches your inbox for spam (something I wish Twitter would implement on its site). TweetSpinner's follower manager targets particular audiences you might be interested in following as well as followers you might wish to ditch. The service also offers a profile rotator and a tweet scheduler. Some of TweetSpinner's features can be customized, though customization may require a paid membership. To use TweetSpinner, you need to register with the site and allow it to access your Twitter account.

4. Twerp Scan.

Twerp Scan helps you manage your followers and the contacts you're following. Allow the site access to your Twitter account and it will generate a report detailing for each contact how many followers they have, how many people they're following, their follower-to-following ratio, their number of tweets and the date of their last tweet. You can sort your contacts based on any of these characteristics, and by clicking a box, you can either mass follow, delete or block them.

5. UnTweeps.

UnTweeps is a basic tool that hooks into your Twitter account. It gives you three options: You can view the people you follow who haven't updated their status in 30 days (or any time period you choose); you can generate a list of followers based their days of inactivity; and you can view the Twitter accounts that you have blocked. You can then unfollow certain accounts accordingly.

Next: LinkedIn and Twitter Partnership: Do's and Don'ts for Users

Page Break

LinkedIn and Twitter Partnership: Do's and Don'ts for Users

Ian Paul

LinkedIn and Twitter announced a partnership allowing you to push your LinkedIn status updates out to your Twitter account or pull your tweets into your professional profile. Twitter co-founder Biz Stone called it "bringing the peanut butter and the chocolate together to make the perfect combination."

Twitter integration with LinkedIn makes sense, but don't forget these two services are very different from each other. Twitter is a very casual and fun network with its short burst messages, while LinkedIn is all about connecting with colleagues, other professionals and furthering your career. If you integrate your Twitter and LinkedIn accounts, be prepared to make smart choices about what you share across these services, because what's perfectly acceptable on one network, may not work on the other.

The Basics

You have three options for integrating LinkedIn with Twitter: you can rebroadcast your LinkedIn status updates to Twitter, turn your tweets into your LinkedIn status or both. To start integrating your tweets, you need to edit your LinkedIn settings by adding Twitter from your profile page or by clicking the Twitter icon next to your status on the homepage. Twitter integration will be rolled out to all LinkedIn users over the next few days, so you may not see the new feature right away.

DO's and Don'ts

DO broadcast your LinkedIn status to Twitter. Chances are your updates on LinkedIn contain things you want to talk about with as many people as possible like what you're working on, what you need help with or just a general question. Broadcasting these updates to your Twitter followers will only add to your knowledge and help get the word out about what you're doing. To push your LinkedIn status out to Twitter, click the check box next to the Twitter icon on your LinkedIn homepage, enter your update and click "Share."

DO link multiple Twitter accounts to your LinkedIn profile. If you have more than one Twitter identity, you probably have one account for personal tweets and others related to your business or job. It's almost impossible to hide your personal Twitter account from the rest of the world, so why not integrate all your Twitter accounts with LinkedIn? Besides, if you send out a lot of work-related or topical items from your personal account, you may want your professional network to see these tweets. LinkedIn did not specify how many Twitter accounts you could add, or what kind of broadcasting controls it offers for integrating multiple accounts.

DON'T send all your tweets to LinkedIn. Twitter's not just a professional broadcast tool it's also a fun way to connect with others. Don't forget that. LinkedIn gives you the option to only send tweets to your profile marked with the '#in' or '#li' hashtags or to send all your tweets to LinkedIn. Make sure you choose the hashtag option so only the tweets you decide to share will get through to your LinkedIn account. Sharing an update about your recent promotion on LinkedIn via Twitter is a great idea, but all those drunken tweets you send out on Saturdays won't look so hot on your professional profile.

DON'T display your Twitter account on LinkedIn. LinkedIn gives you the option of installing a Twitter widget on your LinkedIn profile that will show your most recent tweets. You don't want to do this for the reasons given above, not to mention the fact that you're already sending your tweets to your LinkedIn status. Why the double exposure? There is such a thing as Twitter overkill.

DON'T forget about LinkedIn. Chances are you'll be in front of your Twitter account more often than your LinkedIn page, so remember your colleagues. There are many tweets you'll want to share with them, but if you took my previous advice you'll need to type '#in' or '#li' every time you want to send a tweet to LinkedIn. Don't forget this.

Next: Coping With Social Media Burnout

Page Break

Coping With Social Media Burnout

Kristin Burnham

Jack MacKay, CIO of the American Hospital Association (AHA), acknowledges he's "slow to adopt" social media tools, but he has opened Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter accounts to "at least become knowledgeable in the areas." Maintaining a presence on these sites has proved more difficult.

"With Twitter, for example, we don't have any products we'd want to announce since we're a healthcare company, and if we wanted to find out what people are saying about it, we can pick up any newspaper in America," he says. "Plus, I have very little free time to stay on top of things. I know social media is growing and is going to be around for a while, so I'm trying to get better about it."

And then there's Chuck Musciano, CIO of Martin Marietta Materials, a producer of construction goods. Musciano tweets several times a day on two separate accounts—one personal, one professional—maintains a blog and frequently connects with others via Facebook and LinkedIn.

There's no doubt that the popularity of social media sites has increased. But while some CIOs, like Musciano, have embraced these platforms, others, like MacKay, are more hesitant. What they do agree on, though, is that jumping onto the social media bandwagon puts your time management skills to the test.

Matthew Cornell, a productivity expert, understands why some are overwhelmed by social media. "When you sign up for something like Facebook or Twitter, implicitly or explicitly you're making a commitment to it, and that can be a lot of pressure" he says. Conversely, losing track of time when browsing social media sites can happen easily if you're not disciplined. Musciano's time-management breakthrough occurred when he realized that you can't "drink a river."

"You reach that moment where you realize: a) I can't keep up with every update and b) I don't want to," Musciano says. "You learn to skim—the same way you'd skim a headline in a newspaper or glance through 50 e-mails in your inbox." Musciano sorts his followers for easy scanning with the TweetDeck app. And by linking his Facebook and Twitter accounts, one update appears in both places. "You can waste a lot of time if you don't have the right tools," he says.

Cornell suggests very active social media users establish boundaries. "Limit the amount of time you spend on the sites—build it into your calendar if you have to."

For those like MacKay, who may be struggling to understand the value of time spent on social media sites, Cornell recommends treating each source like an experiment. "You're not sure when you start something how much value there is in it. Find some metrics—how are we going to measure the value?—and then reevaluate it a little bit down the road."

Knowing when it's time to walk away from a site that's not serving your needs is also important. "We don't block sites like Facebook and Twitter, but I have a lot of concerns about how much bandwidth is being gobbled up and the amount of socializing going on in the workplace," says MacKay. "I think there's a little more value with LinkedIn and other business networking sites." And the value he derived from dabbling has even transferred over to his workplace: MacKay is currently working on developing an internal social network for the AHA's members.