twitter is easy to set-up but it's not always obvious how to make the best use of it and many people try it and don't really 'get' the point of it.
One way to think of twitter is that it's a public broadcast SMS text messaging service that allows you to 'follow', or see other people's texts (tweets). One way of thinking about this is that 'following' someone is like subscribing to their texts.
When you login to twitter you see a 'timeline' of tweets, latest at the top. You only see the tweets of those people you follow and those you posted yourself.
Types of tweet
Reply - If you use the 'Reply' button or function on an app, your tweet will start with the @TWITTER_USERNAME of the user who posted the original tweet. In most apps there is a Reply menu option which does this. NOTE - If you wish to reply but effectively CC public and let your followers see the reply, the convention is to precede the @USERNAME with a period thus -
.@USERNAME I didn't know that William Shatner wore a wig!
Mention - If a tweet includes a person's twitter username preceded by an @ sign, but not at the start, then that tweet counts as a mention and will be visible in your followers timeline and will appear in the Mentions view when you're logged into the twitter web site, or the Mentions menu item on your twitter app.
Direct Message - If your tweet begins 'D ' (D then a space), or it is entered on the 'Messages' part of the twitter web page or your twitter client app, then this is a 'Direct Message (DM)'. These tweets are completely private and not visible to your followers or anyone browsing your twitter page. However, for privacy reasons you can only send a DM to someone who follows you.
Public - Any tweet you post which is not a DM is public, however, as stated above, public tweets might still not be visible in your follower's timeline if they are Replies.
Retweet - If you see a tweet from someone else that you like and think your followers might be interested in, or if you just fancy doing the twitter equivalent of 'hear hear', you can 'Retweet' it - This is a an option next to Reply on the twitter web interface or a menu option on twitter apps.
Quote Tweet - Some apps allow you to 'Quote tweet' which is like a retweet but enclosed in quotes, this can be useful if you have enough space and want to add a comment of your own after the tweet.
e.g. @CNN Obama wins second term.
Quote Tweet - '@CNN Obama wins second term' Thank goodness for that!
Posting Links
Sometimes links can be very long and take a lot of the 140 character length limit of your tweets. In this case, it's best to use a 'URL shortener' - This is a web application, or a menu option built in to your twitter app, that creates a new shorted URL which points to the original URL. The most well know of these is
http://bit.ly (Or 'bitley' as some call it). If you sign up for a bit.ly account, you can the ability to name these links to make them more memorable,
hashtags
A 'hashtag' is a word, or concatenation of words preceded by the hash (Square or pound symbol as it's called in the US). e.g. #lowdosenaltrexone
The idea here is to make it easy for people to post and find tweets related to a topic. So you should think of a suitable hashtag for your campaign or issue that is as brief and memorable as possible. Sadly, #LDN is used to refer to London, hence the very long #lowdosenaltrexone !
Many twitter applications now allow you to click on a hashtag and this performs a search for tweets containing that hashtag.
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OK, so how can you practically use twitter to publicise your cause?
At the most basic level twitter is a micro-blog, so you can post content and links on twitter like you would on a blog.
However, you can also use the twitter search function to seek out people who may be interested in your cause and post messages directed at them (With a reply or mention).
For example, for LDN Now, I might search for the word 'Naltrexone' and if I find a tweet like this -
@ Low Dose Naltrexone!
I can see that @fragileannie has tweeted @DanaBaker about Low Dose Naltrexone, so I might tweet @DanaBaker with a link to the LDN Now site or some other LDN sites she might want to visit. Reading this, she may decide to follow @LDNNow and then LDNNow would gain a follower.
Similarly, I might find a tweet like this and decide to echo it by retweeting it -
RT @: I'm sorry what is LDN? // Low Dose (3 or 4.5 MG) it helps orchestrate ones immune system
NOTE - In this case, this is already a retweet, so I'd be retweeting a retweet but that is fine.
