Summary:
All a Twitter delivers quick, smart answers to the questions everyone’s asking about Twitter: What’s it about? What’s it good for? Is it worth your time? How do you get started? Where can you find great Twitter feeds to follow? How can you build a worldwide audience for your own Tweets? You name it, Tee Morris answers it–and shows you exactly how to do it, step-by-step, in plain English. No experience? Looking for something new to do with your Tweets? No problem: this is the Twitter book for everyone!
I picked this one up at the library because I wanted to see if there was anything about twitter I didn't already know or could be doing better. I got through this book pretty quickly and I enjoyed every minute of it. It's the perfect book for someone new to twitter but it's also helpful if you've been on it awhile.
Many topics are covered including: what is twitter, setup, talking on twitter, using programs to tweet (like tweetdeck), twitter tools, tracking twitter, twitter to go (Blackberry), iphone, trouble with twitter, types of tweets, business on twitter, the darkside of twitter, why the author likes twitter, more tools for twitter and twitterspeak.
Here are some of what I think are the most important points he made:
- Fill in your profile and get a custom avatar. (I agree that this is important. I don't usually follow those who have no bio info. If you won't tell me a little about who you are, I'm not interested.)
- Don't AUTO-DM. (Please, please stop. I get so many and a bunch of people will automatically unfollow you or even block you just for sending them. DMs are for personal messages you personally send, not for ads for your site or requests to join you on facebook. Welcomes aren't so bad but still...)
- Numbers aren't everything. (Despite what Ashton Kutcher and CNN showed us, it's not all about how many followers you have. If you have 500 000 followers and follow 80 people, I won't follow you, sorry. The point of twitter is not to race to a million followers, it's to build a network, a community of people.)
- Don't just advertise yourself. (It's okay to include links to your company or websites but your account shouldn't be all that. I don't follow any accounts whose last 10 tweets are identical ads.)
- Don't just re-tweet or quote people. (For those who think constant retweeting and quoting famous people is a good way to use your twitter account, consider the following.)
"Re-tweets aren't the problem, but they are a problem when your opening page is nothing but re-tweets. [...] If you really think this is active participation and effective networking, try this when you're out with a group of people: Hold a conversation with someone using only what you hear others around you say at that moment. If you know the people who are helping you with the conversation, add in their names. "Tee says..." or "Michelle says.." followed by what they said. If someone asks you a question, don't answer but throw out something else you've overheard. Watch the reaction of the person you're talking to, and the people around you. This is how consistent re-tweeting comes across." - pg 237-238
Tee does such a great job of explaining twitter and it's related tools and apps and he's funny to boot. The only qualm I had about the book is it needs some editing. There were quite a few typos.
e.g. Talking about the client DestroyTwitter, at one time it's referred to as DestoryTwitter., "are found not" instead of "are not found" and "twiiter" instead of "twitter." That's not all of them. However in each instance you can fully understand what is being said and I'm sure these will all be fixed when a second edition is written.
Recommended for all twitter users, new and old.
Links of Interest: Tee Morris, Bird House Rules (All a Twitter page),
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