Making Money on the Internet Blog

The Twitter Book

This practical guide will teach you everything you need to know to quickly become a Twitter power user, including strategies and tactics for using Twitter’s 140-character messages as a serious–and effective–way to boost your business. Co-written by Tim O’Reilly and Sarah Milstein, widely followed and highly respected Twitterers, the practical information in The Twitter Book is presented in a fun, full-color format that’s packed with helpful examples and clear explanations.

Twitter Tips

1. Even if you use Twitter primarily to post information that’s not directly about your company, you can—and should—use it to sometimes link back to your own site or blog. Many companies find that Twitter can become a top referrer to their sites, so avail yourself of that benefit—just do it in a smart way.
The key is to frame the link in a way that’s interesting to your Twitter followers. So instead of saying, “New Blog Post: Mundane Headline, http://yourblog.com,” try something like the examples here, each of which links back to the Bigelow Tea blog.

2. If you’re looking to get the most out of Twitter, don’t fall into the trap of posting an RSS feed of headlines from your site or blog. Although there are services that will automate such a connection for you, they simply help you create an impersonal account that duplicates the main feature of an RSS reader. Why bother?

Four Important Things to Search For

If you want really useful search results from Twitter, you have to spend some time playing with the advanced search options to figure out the relevant terms and topics people are talking about. Here are four topics to get you started:
1. Your name. It may be known as a “vanity search,” but keeping an eye on what people say about you is a smart idea. (Don’t forget that putting quotes around your name can help refine the results. Search for “Jane Doe” instead of Jane Doe.)
2. Your Twitter account name. Don’t miss messages to or about you.
3. Your company, brand or product. Peek into the minds of customers, competitors, journalists and other key constituents. If you’re a local business, use the advanced search “Location” option to narrow down results. Also, if your company name is common, use the minus sign to weed out inappropriate results. For instance, if you work for Kaiser Permanente, search for Kaiser -Chiefs to make sure messages about the band don’t overwhelm your results. (Here, a targeted search yields some relevant results.)
4. Your competitors. Get market intel and ideas.

User Ratings and Reviews

4 Stars Good introduction, but will be outdated quickly
A good introduction to Twitter and many of the 3rd party tools that have sprung up around it. Definitely aimed at novice users. Also, I suspect this book will be dated quickly simply because the Twitter universe is evolving so rapidly that many of the tools mentioned will be superseded by better tools and the Twitter API itself is also evolving, helping to spawn more tools and features.

So if you are considering this book and it is more than 12 months old and there hasn’t been a 2nd edition, I would probably look for something more recent.

5 Stars As a power user, I still learned from this book
I think that Twitter is a terrific resource for job seekers, entrepreneurs and all professionals for connecting and network expanding. As a power user, it is easy to think of using Twitter as second nature. It’s not rocket science, but there are many “ins and outs,” and it really is not all that obvious to everyone. So, I was excited to receive The Twitter Book, by Tim O’Reilly and Sarah Milstein. As the authors note in Chapter 1, “Twitter lives a dual life. On one hand, it’s a simple service. Besides letting you share and read very short messages, it has few bells and whistles. On the other hand, it can be surprisingly hard to figure out. The screens aren’t particularly intuitive and the jargon and symbols are obscure.”

So, I read the book both as an expert user and as a coach looking for resources to help my clients become more frequent and successful Tweeps. I was not disappointed on either count!

For new users, the book offers a tutorial on how to get signed up and started and how to create a profile. The book covers all of the terminology that Twitter users need to know and provides pictures and examples throughout. Need to know how to find people? Done. How to tweeet from the road? Done. What’s a RT (retweet) and can you edit it if it is too long to send? (Yes, but consider using “via” if you change it substantially,” p. 115).

Power users - did YOU know that there is an opp called 140it that “uses common cutting conventions to whittle down” your posts if they are too long? (It doesn’t work for every post, but I had never heard about it, and I’ve been tweeting up a storm for a while now.)

Suffice to say that any detail you need to know is available in this handy, easy to use reference.

But, using Twitter successfully requires more than just a list of “how to,” practical concerns. There are many nuanced aspects, and Sarah and Tim don’t forget about them in this book. Included in the book: discussions about how many people to follow, how to have great conversations, how to @ reply so the user will know what you mean, how often to tweet and how to go beyond “what are you doing?” to be a contributing member of your Twitter community and more.

I’d recommend this book to anyone hesitant to try Twitter because it seems overwhelming and current “tweeps” who would like to pick up some tips from the pros. You can follow the authors at @timoreilly and @SarahM and you can follow the book’s hashtag (”demystified” on page 41) - #twitterbook.

5 Stars Learn What You Need to Know About Twitter in 90 min
I am a person who is new to Twitter and still a Twitter skeptic. While this book didn’t convert me (that wasn’t the book’s intention) it did a wonderful job of demystifying this new world.

Pros

1. The Twitter Book’s strengths are in its brevity and structure. Most topics are covered in one page and it is just enough info to give you a good primer on each topic. From there you can take the tools & links it provides and dig deeper.

2. Clearly explained the lingo and jargon which was extremely help to a casual user like myself.

3. Very timely, all the examples and references are still fresh.

Cons

1. Unfortunately, this book won’t age well. Things are changing so fast in the social media world that in another 6-12 months many of the examples and references may seem stale. Let’s hope the sales of this version are enough to justify frequent revisions.

In conclusion, give the book a shot, you’ll get enough tips and pointers from it to make it worth your while.

5 Stars Excellent Book on Using and Leveraging Twitter
It probably comes as no surprise that Twitter usage grew 1,382 percent in just three years. It is a service that, once you understand it and its power, can become a part of your daily life. In more ways than just telling the world what you had for lunch. To help people understand that growth and to assist them with the use of Twitter, Tim O’Reilly and Sarah Milstein have authored The Twitter Book. This little book, all of 234 pages, can be read in one sitting. Or, more likely, kept at arms reach, as it contains a wealth of information that one will refer to many times. It has the added bonus of explaining, using easy to understand terms, why you and your organization should be on Twitter, how to monitor the conversations, and the various tools at your disposal to leverage the service.

Contents:

Introduction

Chapter 1: Get Started

Chapter 2: Listen In

Chapter 3: Hold Great Conversations

Chapter 4: Share Information and Ideas

Chapter 5: Reveal Yourself

Chapter 6: Twitter for Business: Special Considerations and Ideas

Index

Tim O’Reilly and Sarah Milstein waste no time jumping into the Twitter universe. Within a few pages, you understand the appeal of the service, something called “ambient intimacy” which is a “lightweight but meaningful connection.” While the conversations seem, to those not familiar with Twitter, as being banal, they actually bring people together. Once O’Reilly and Milstein explain the value of the service using several scenarios, they help you get started, from signing up to explaining Twitter terms, from finding people to follow to how to test drive the service. Once the basics have been covered, they cover a wide range of topics, providing tips and tricks, URL shorteners, customization of your Twitter page, and more. The final chapter is very helpful for organizations that want to leverage Twitter. Many of the items that O’Reilly and Milstein present in that chapter would be applicable to those may use the service to look for a job, too. It is the highlight of the book, as it presents solid guidelines for corporate tweeting and monitoring of the conversations taking place through Twitter.

The Twitter Book is an excellent resource for those new to the service or old hands. Written in a casual, conversational style, with plenty of graphics and examples, this book will connect with a wide range of Twitter users. Even the early chapters are beneficial to those that live on Twitter, especially when the authors explain @messages, the power of Twitter Search, and how to retweet. While retweeting may seem simple to veteran Twitter users, there are some excellent tips presented in this book on how to effectively retweet. O’Reilly and Milstein also provide the reader with solid 3rd party applications and web sites where the user can take advantage of the conversations on Twitter. Many of them may be familiar, like Twitterific and TweetDeck, for mobile and desktop tweeting, and sites like What the Trend and Who Should I Follow, for determining Twitter trends and finding interesting people to follow. While you may worry that the information will become dated quickly, O’Reilly and Milstein minimize that fear by writing an excellent resource and promising that they will continue to update it. Whether you are thinking about experimenting with Twitter or a seasoned user, The Twitter Book is an excellent resource. While I borrowed this book from the library, I will be purchasing it in the near future; there is just too much good information contained in this book

Disclosure:

Obtained from: Library

Payment: Borrowed

5 Stars The Twitter Book
Because I was a history major in college, and am approaching 60 years old, I needed this basic text. It makes Twittering simple to do, and explains the proper etiquette for “twittering”. Who would have thought that an Internet microblog site could be good for business?

For any skeptics of the power of the Internet, I say either get on board or get left behind.

William C. Head

Attorney at Law

Atlanta, GA

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