The relative simplicity of establishing a presence on Twitter can create a false sense of accomplishment for those who don't create a focused plan. Regardless of what your end goal may be, to be effective in this platform you need to acquire followers and engage with them on an ongoing basis. It's not enough to use your Twitter account as a way to blast out content and information. Send @replies and direct messages to respond to your followers' tweets, be interactive, and retweet others' tweets that your followers might find valuable, too.
Check out the links below for some Twitter basics and best practices.
- Twitter basics
- The Twitter Guidebook
- What are hashtags ("#" Symbols)?
- How to Use Hashtags in Your Social Media Marketing
- 4 Easy Steps to Getting Started with Twitter Professionally for Students & Pros
- Guidelines for Contests on Twitter
- 10 Twitter tips & tricks to keep your followers engaged
Latest Twitter updates
Photos just got more social. Twitter has rolled out photo tagging on mobile. You can now tag up to 10 people in a photo and still have all 140 characters at your disposal, making it easier to connect with your friends. In addition, you can now share up to 4 photos in a single Tweet. [March 2014]
Twitter has opened up its analytics tool to the public, giving everyone the ability to see the performance of their most recent tweets. To view your stats, go to the Twitter Ads dashboard and click on the ‘Analytics’ tab at the top of the page. The Timeline activity displays a graph for the user based on the number of mentions, follows and unfollows that they’ve received over the last month. A detailed list underneath shows all of the user’s most recent tweets, including the number of times someone has favorited, retweeted or replied to it. [Source: The Next Web]
Twitter Allows Direct Messages From All Followers: Twitter has pushed out a feature update that is extremely useful for anyone who uses Twitter to communicate both publicly and privately. Up until now, you could only send a direct message on Twitter when the other person followed you back. Now you can change your settings so that anyone can send you a direct message even if you do not follow him or her back.
Twitter Background Templates
Setting up a Twitter account and would like a Queen's branded background? The Office of Marketing and Communications provides the following templates of campus photos for use as Twitter backgrounds:
The header image in your profile needs to be at least 1252 pixels wide by 626 pixels high. To change yours go to twitter.com/settings/design. To read more about the change read "Everything You Need To Know About the New Twitter Profiles"
The presentation below was given in December 2013 and includes 2013 stats, key updates to Facebook and Twitter as well us some tips and best practices.