TWITTER COMMANDS

From your main profile page, when you are logged into your Twitter account, you will see the text box at the very top. This is where you enter in your updates that are visible to your followers or are added to the general timeline, if you enabled that setting earlier. Whenever you wish to send out an update to everyone you just enter it into this text box and click the UPDATE button. Your current activity will be posted instantly and you will be able to see it below, along with the updates from others.However, if you wish to direct a post to a specific Twitter user, you will use the @ command. This will still show your message to everyone who follows you, however it will be evident that it is directed to a specific user in the timeline.For example, if I wanted to send the user Marty-Minor a message, I would write the following into the twitter update box:@Suzie-Q Hi, how are you doing? Long time, no talk!The @ symbol is placed directly in front of the username of the person you are attempting to message.

There are no spaces between this symbol and their username, however there is a space after the username, before you type in the rest of your message.You can do the same thing from your mobile phone if you have activated it via your Twitter settings. Simple send an SMS message to number: 40404, which is Twitters default number. Since your Twitter account has been previously associated with your cellular number, any messages sent from you will be posted under your account, and the system will instantly recognize you.If using your Instant Messenger to send out tweets, you simply send a message to twitter@twitter.com if you are using Jabber or gTalk and it will post it accordingly since once again, you have associated these specific chat programs to your Twitter account from within your Twitter accounts’ settings area.Remember though, that each time you send out a tweet this way, every follower on your list will be able to see your messages and updates on their own Twitter account page.

There are other commands that you should know if you plan to use Twitter. For example, if you wish to contact someone privately, Twitter allows you to reach out to them using the Direct command. Simply enter in d username message and users will receive your ping if they have enabled direct messages on their mobile phone or Instant Messenger account.Example: If I wanted to contact a person who I am following, or who is following me directly, I would write:d johndoe how are you doing?The letter ‘d’ represents ‘Direct” and the message will be sent directly to the username I specify in my message.If you decide to use twitter with your mobile phone or Instant Messaging system, you have additional options available to you including the ability to receive phone updates from specific users by using the follow command.Follow janedoeTyping this into your Instant Messenger system will ensure that you receive updates and alerts from ‘janedoe’ (replace this with an actual username of someone on your list).If you wish to disable receiving updates from a specific user you use the off ‘leave’ command like this:leave janedoeAnd you will no longer receive tweets to your phone or Instant Messenger from janedoe.You can explore all of the different Twitter lingo commands by visiting: http://www.Twitter.com/help/lingoIn addition to the options available to those who use Twitter mobile or Instant Messenger, you should get familiar with the commands used on the actual twitter website, whenever you plan to post an update or wish to direct a message to a specific user.As mentioned earlier, if you wish to reply to someone publically, where your message will be visible by all but highlighted to the person you are directing your message to, you use the @username command:@janedoe Hi! How are you? Love the blog design!However, there are other commands that you can type directly into the Twitter update text box from your account, such as if you wanted to retrieve the profile information for a specific user on Twitter you use the WHOIS command:whois janedoeAnd information pertaining to this specific user will be displayed provided they have included a Twitter profile.When you enter in a WHOIS request, into the Twitter update box, the users information will appear instantly right above the text box but will disappear in a few minutes, so be sure to pay attention to the information before it’s gone.

If you don’t want to know everything that is contained in a specific Twitter users profile, and you just want to know what they are currently doing, you can enter in the GET command to retrieve their most recent update:get janedoeThis will load an info box with their current status message.If someone hasn’t updated their Twitter status in awhile and you wish to remind them, you can send out a nudge which will prompt the user to log into their Twitter account and post a status update.You nudge someone by typing in: nudge usernameQuite simple, really! And finally, if you really enjoy a specific users updates you can add them as a favorite by entering in:fav usernameThis will make the users last update as a favorite, and also save them for you under the “Favorites” link in your stats area on your main page:At the time I have no favorites selected. If I sent out the fav command after seeing a specific users update, my stats area would change to reflect and store that favorite tweet:If you wish to remove a stored favorite, just click on the “Favorites” link and you will see the tweet, along with the username of the person and a yellow star under their post. Click on the star icon to de-activate and remove the favorite. You also have the option of contacting this user directly from this area by clicking on the arrow icon. BorWhenever you post an update on Twitter, it instantly gets broadcasted via the community wall visible to everyone who is following you. The downfall to these messages, known as ‘tweets’ is that they are limited to only 140 characters which can make it difficult to get your message across with clarity.To work around this, you will see many marketers simply posting a short ‘tweet’ and include a URL to their website or blog so people who are interested are able to follow the link to find out more information.Part of the reason for limiting the messages to only 140 characters is due to the feature that Twitter offers where users can have these messages sent as a single SMS alert. You can also post messages on Twitter that only specific users or individual Twitter members can see, or you can choose to make your twitter broadcasts available to the entire community, which means that anyone can see your messages and subscribe to follow you and keep up to date on what you are doing.Remember that every tweet you send out is readable by everyone following you, so focus your attention on sending out general news and updates regarding your websites, projects, new releases, products and services or just cool websites that you come across, and always remember to use Twitter-Netiquette by not spamming out tweets and finding a good balance between keeping your updates fresh and current without looking like you are begging for attention.Keep your tweets interesting and don’t focus just on self-promotion but instead, provide a personal glimpse into your life by including every-day tasks, and interesting tidbits that people may otherwise never know when doing business with you.Twitter is a great (and easy) way to market your websites, if you do it properly.

FROM: www.tweethandbook.com