Phillip's Guide To Twitter, Part One
1st September 2011
Hi,
Thanks so much for sending me a Tweet. The reason I've sent you here is because you've asked a question that I get asked a lot and this is much faster than having to write my answers out over and over. Please don't worry that you have asked that sort of a question, I don't mind at all, I did exactly the same! When I joined Twitter I felt like I'd just started at a new school.
You might also be a Twitter veteran and know exactly what you're doing, in which case you'll understand my reasons for this page.
Anyway, scroll down until you see something that might answer your question.
Getting started
Twitter is a fantastic community, and people are usually more than happy to help. As with most communities there are some who don't want to be bothered, are too busy or who keep themselves to themselves. If you encounter that, be polite and move on! The whole thing works around you following those who interest you, and being followed by those interested in what you have to say.
You are limited in how much you say at any one time by the 140 character limit. When you type, you will see the counter above the little box count down, when it goes red you have written too much, anything written after the counter goes red won't be seen. You could write the most beautiful prose, but only the first 140 characters will ever be seen! As you progress you will eventually experience the euphoria of saying exactly what you want to say in exactly 140 characters! You might think I'm mad, but I bet you do!!
You can follow whoever you like and complete strangers will probably follow you if they like what you say, or you share a common interest. At first it can be very quiet! You'll need to search out people you find interesting, do that by clicking ‘Find People' in the top right hand corner of your profile page.
You might look for your favourite celeb, but BEWARE OF FAKES. There are a lot of fakes here, sometimes it's obvious, sometimes they are very clever. Even I am really wary of celebs if I don't have a guarantee it's them.
A good way of keeping up to date is to follow @valebrity or check their website http://valebrity.com/. It's up-to-date and usually on the button, however even they occasionally get tricked. I get asked a LOT if certain celebs are fake/real on here, I follow the ones whom I find interesting and who I know to be real, any others ... I know as much as you! I'm not a Twitter policeman! A lot of well known peeps also have the blue 'Verified Account' badge on them. I can't verify everyone, nor do I have the time to try, however if I have any new knowledge I'll let you know in my Tweets.
You can follow celebs here- it's legal and it's not stalking. Just be aware of asking them the obvious questions, or you may end up on another one of these pages.
You might want to just follow those in the public eye, that's fine of course, but it's much more fun to follow a cross section of different people. Pretty much everyone likes a follow, so if you see someone tweet something fun/interesting, follow them, they might do it again, talk to them, they might follow you.
It's not about numbers! I have lots of people following me, when I started, it was just a handful, but it was just as much fun to discover new people in those early days.
If you want to find something whether it's a person or people of similar interests go to http://search.twitter.com/ it should point you in the right direction. Other useful sites to experiment with http://www.twitterlocal.net/ or http://justtweetit.com/ are good directories.
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