Getting started on Twitter is straight forward just head over to www.twitter.com and hit the sign up button.

When you are taken to the page above there’s not a lot going on. This is because you are not following anyone to see their messages in the main content area.

So let’s go through the basics of what you need to know breaking down the different areas:

1. Messages
This is where you post your tweets! The maximum amount of characters is 140. When you type in your message you’ll see the amount of characters you have left are shown. If it goes red and to a minus you will need to trim down your message to fit.

When you click update this will be published and shown in the timeline of your followers. (You’ll also see it appear)

2. Main Feed
All tweets will appear here from all your followers including any
Open messages to you with the @ in front, so @yourusername followed by the message will show and be seen by everyone who is following that person.

3. Toolbar
Home: Displays your public timeline
Profile: This displays all the public messages you have sent out
Find People: Various ways to search for people on Twitter
Settings: Personalise your account by updating your bio, changing password: set up your mobile SMS, update your picture, your background design and Notices for your timeline
Help: Helpful information about Twitter
Sign Out: Log out of your account

4. Picture Icon.
You can click on this and see all the public messages you have submitted (same as Profile in Toolbar)

5. Status Line
Clicking on either followers or following displays that relevant data

6. @yourTwitterID
By clicking on this you will only see tweets that have been directed at you or included your Twitter ID

7. Direct Messages
Here you can see all the private direct messages (known as DM’s) from and to you. You can reply by clicking on the envelope icon that appears when you hover over the messages.

You can use keyboard shortcuts in the message area.

D Direct message. To send someone a private direct message you can prefix a ‘D’ followed by the persons name.
So for example a dirext message to Jake might look something like this:

D Jake Hi Jake, let’s catch up soon
Twitter will change the text to ‘Direct Message to: Jake’ to make clear what you are doing.

9. Favorites
Lists any tweets you have saved as a favourite to refer back to at a later time. You can also click the star on the top right hand side of the and when the star turns yellow your message is saved.

A shortcut for Favorites is FAV
So FAV Jake will save Jake’s last tweet as a favourite

10. Lists
You can create a list which can be friends, associates, your inner circle or whatever you like. If you’re added to a list by someone else it will also show in this section.

The default background for your Twitter profile isn’t very interesting and should be changed. This can be customized and should, if possible, be consistent with your brand which can be carried across all your blogs and other social networks. A quick search on Google for Twitter backgrounds should bring up plenty of designers or you can contact us as we offer this service.

Once you’ve signed up to Twitter take your time and see who you want to follow.  Don’t blitz through as many as you can; you just won’t be able to follow everyone.  Choose the mavens, the people of influence in your niche.

When you do they will receive an email telling them that you are following them with a link back to your profile.  Although this notification can be switched off, it is on by default

Let me re-phrase..latest craze? ok we wouldn’t recommend you just follow latest crazes but services such as Twitter are great for conversations, enhancing your reputation and building relationships.

Don’t just jump on there and follow millions of people, choose the ones that have influence and provide your own tweets with worthwhile breaking news in your own niche.

You can also use tools such as Twitter Tools or Twitterfeed to automate the process of adding blog post links to Twitter, in fact Troy Wray just gave me a heads up on Tweet My blog as well..at initial glance it looks pretty darn good.

If you post to your blog a lot you may be in danger of overwhelming your readers – if that’s the case try just using your best blog posts and submit those. Readers will just be put off by a whole list of blog links with no conversation. The worst tool we saw on someone’s twitter account recently was a ‘currently browsing’ plugin from FireFox…yes every website was listed on this guy’s feed…don’t go there.

Look out for our report onTwitter which guides you through the whole process with some revealing tactics to making the most of it!