“RT” can be used to ReTweet another user’s Tweet.  ReTweeting has the benefit of increases your visibility, and can be used for passive marketing e.g.

RT @bdgreeninfo – “twitter commands” – just what you need!

When you ReTweet a message it’s sent to ALL the people who are following YOU

Your ReTweeted message should start with the abbreviation “RT“, or the word “Retweet” say, followed by the username of the person you are ReTweeting (i.e. @bdgreeinfo), and then finishing with the original tweet

However, given the 140 characters restriction, the following is also a valid ReTweet!

Just read: “twitter commands” – just what you need! by @bdgreeninfo on his blog: www.blog.bdgreen.it

• DM username message

To send a private message to somebody use the “DM” command e.g.

dm bdgreeninfo ready for that meeting?

These DM tweets will appear on the users Twitter home page under the Direct Messages tab, and if they’ve got email notifications turned on, they’ll also get an email message.  DMs don’t appear in either person’s public time-line, or in search results.  But DMs can only be sent to people who are following you …

• FOLLOW username

To get an existing Twitterer to follow you get them to enter the “follow” command in their Twitter home page e.g.

follow bdgreeninfo

• WHOIS username

Of course you should always check who you are inviting – to get the public profile of a Twitterer use the “whois” command e.g.

whois bdgreeninfo

• Hashtag (#)

Twitter doesn’t have a field where you can categorise your message.  So users have created the hashtag.  Essentially a hashtag is the # symbol followed by a term describing or naming the topic

There are many hashtags already in use in the Twitterverse (see http://hashtags.org/tags) so you may need to be a little creative in constructing one that enables your followers to track your specific topic.  For example, if everyone that will be attending your introductory workshop were asked to add something like #BDG101 to their tweets, everyone present, or not, can see and share all the notes in one place e.g.

For an update on the Social Media project #BDG101 see http://bit.ly/4KnUxz

Hashtags are an emergent phenomena, and as such, the etiquette is negotiable.  Use sparingly and respectfully

• Shortened URLs

With just 140 characters for a Tweet, Twitter hasn’t given you much room to include URL links—some of which are longer than 140 characters themselves …

The http://bit.ly/4KnUxz link in the above example is known as a shortend URL – see my earlier post about URL shortening – bit.ly

2) Building relationships – searching:

So you can now start using Twitter to broadcast information about your company to your followers! But broadcasting alone is not sufficient, you must act on relevant Tweets in the Twitterverse to build relationships …

Listen regularly for comments about your company – not merely from your existing followers, but from the whole Twitterverse!  You must be prepared to address concerns, offer customer service or thank people for their praise.  But the Twitterverse is hugh – how can you focus your efforts?  Firstly, you can use Twitters Saved Searches feature to track mentions of your company, etc from your Twitter home page.  Or, alternatively, start using Twitters Word Search:

• Word-level search:
  • search for exact match e.g. search “social media”
  • search for tweets containing both words e.g. search social media
  • search for either word, or both e.g. search social OR media
  • exclude any word e.g. search media -social
  • search for related discussions (i.e. hashtags!) e.g. search #socialmedia
• A person-related search:
  • find threads by a specified Twitter user e.g. search blog from:bdgreeninfo
  • find threads addressed to a specified Twitter user e.g. search to:thebhf
  • find Tweets referencing the specified username e.g. search @thebhf
• Location-specific search:
  • find Tweets sent near the specified location e.g. search “social media” near:london
  • find Tweets sent within X miles of the specified location e.g. search  facebook near:london within:20mi
• Date-specific search:
  • find posts sent since/until the specified date e.g. search seo since:2009-10-01 (note: date format is: YYYY-MM-DD)
• Attitude search:
  • finds Tweets with positive / negative attitude e.g.  search “social media” :) , or search twitter :(
• Other search:
  • search for questions e.g. search facebook ?
  • search for useful resources – e.g. links to related pages: search seo filter:links