You know you want to find out more about that elusive enigma that keeps on beckoning you. It is a very powerful way to communicate but could be totally intimidating if you are a newbee to this and other forms of social media. Before you click away from here, let’s get into some real plain talk about what Twitter REALLY is and how you can benefit from it.

What is Twitter?

Twitter is a way to meet, connect and communicate with people with interests similar to yours. Here is how you can tell if Twitter is for you. Do you have a business, hobbies or friends who tweet? Do you like cooking, wines, cars, breaking news, celebrity gossip? Are you into sustainable living, collecting or even the supernatural? The fact is, twitter topics pretty much has something for everyone.

Contrary to popular belief, no one is saying you have to tweet what you are doing. No one wants to know that your are sitting down to read a book. What they DO want to know is what is this riveting book you are reading? Tell them and give them a link to your favorite review of the book or to a purchase site. Perhaps you are putting up some antique linens on Ebay. Tweet it and include a link. You are sending the information out to twitterdom which will be viewed, and shared by many. For those selling on Ebay, Twitter gives you a potential buyer. In other words, share interesting or pertinent information.

In essence, Twitter builds your own personal community of contacts. You will be shocked at how this tool can build your business and change your life. So read on and give it a go. You will not be disappointed. Oh, hey, and when you follow us at TheDailyBasics, tell us you read this post and we’ll be sure to hold your tweetin’ hand until you get on your tweetin’ feet by tweetin’ with you. Promise!

Set Up and Find Friends

Step One: Log on to www.twitter.com.

Step Two: Create an account. This is pretty self explanatory. You will be creating a user name and password. Choose something that describes you or use your business’s name. Keep it short. You are only allowed 140 characters per message and that includes your name per tweet message.

Step Three: A selection of topics that interest you will pop up. Check on people who interest you which will add them to your ‘following’ list. You can always ‘unfollow’ later if you don’t like them, but this will get you started. They are just giving a sampling here, but enough to get you started. Also, don’t forget that when you visit websites you like that have a Twitter icon on it, you can click and follow those people, too.

Step Four: With your permission, Twitter can look into you email address book and find your friends who tweet. This information helps build your list of contacts.

Step Five: Next is your Settings page. Fill in the info plain and simple.

Step Six: This is your design page which will give creative options or you can use your own graphics. You can play around with this or go back to it later when you get more comfortable with the site.

Step Seven: Finding Friends. Twitter will give you other options of finding friends or browse interests on the top right bar under where it says ‘following’. Once you find people you know or like, go onto their main tweet page by either clicking on their name or typing it into the ‘search’ option. Now listen carefully. Click onto who they are ‘following’. These are folks that interest them. Therefore, they might also interest you, too. Follow those who interest you. You’ll be surprised that some will follow you back now or later..

Step Eight: How To Start. You will be able to read the tweets of the people you are’ following’ but until they ‘follow’ you back, they will not see your tweets. You can, however, comment on something they tweet. By doing this, you are interacting with them. If they like what you’ve said, don’t be surprised when they answer you back. This is how you meet people and they begin ‘follow’ you. Once someone is ‘following’ you, they will then be seeing everything you tweet and you can direct message each other.

Rules

1. Keep your messages to 140 characters – that includes spaces and punctuation. You may include links, web address, etc.

2. DO NOT ever tweet your email address, phone number or any personal information. That is asking for trouble. If you want to exchange personal information, use the DM, or the Direct Message column. That is explained in the glossary of terms link below.

3. Keep it clean. No naughty language or comments. That’s a great way to loose friends on Twitter.

Tools

Load a program on your computer called TWEETDECK.COM. Read the instructions, they are fairly easy, but this will honestly make your tweetin’ life a lot easier. Tweetdeck gives you columns that will let you see your ‘core’ groups. All Friends, Mentions, Direct Mentions and New Followers. Get familiar with the program and as you get used to Twitter, you’ll see how this can benefit you. You can even add your Linkeden and Facebook accounts into individual columns.

Twitter Terminology

You’ll come across words like retweet, hashtags and DM’s. Go over to BloggingBits.com where they’ll give you a simple glossary of Tweetish.

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Use the comments section to ask questions. No question is too small nor silly sounding to us. So, ask away!