So who is a landscape gardener on Twitter?

YOU can't have missed all the talk recently of Twitter, a mini blogging service that works both online and via your mobile phone. And while the service is sold as a way to answer the question, 'what are you doing?' there is so much more you can do with it to make new connections and maybe even help your own business ventures. Registering with the site couldn't be simpler, just provide a username which is the name other users of the service will see and a password. From there you will be able to leave messages about what you are doing, interesting websites you've crossed or helpful advice that others can then explore. And you pick up this audience by 'following' other users of Twitter so this means that when this person updates their Twitter account you are able to see what they've said on your own page. Often people will follow you back so that you can keep in touch easily, but over time as you see others highlighting the comments of different users, you'll be able to follow these new 'discoveries' as well. There is a little etiquette involved with Twitter but nothing that a couple of hours use won't help clear up, for example: - A message posted by yourself will be seen by everyone following you and will be fully searchable - A message that starts with @person's_username will go direct to that person, but is still public and will be seen by people who follow both sender and receiver of the message - If you want to resend a Tweet someone has sent to your own followers then start with 'RT' and then @person's_username followed by their message - And the fun one, you've only got 140 characters to play with, so be succinct and interesting Twitter can be used to help your business if used sensibly, see it just as an advertising vehicle and no one will follow you, look to offer advice and interesting links with the occasional 'plug' for what you offer and you have a far greater chance for success. Also built into Twitter is the opportunity to send a message direct to some, similar in style to a mobile phone text message, and once you get up to speed there are a number of online tools that allow you to send pictures directly to those following you, such as Twitpic. A couple of other tools that might help make Twitter easier include for people using the Firefox browser the TwitKit add-on, or if you want a standalone piece of software TweetDeck is very popular. Here are a few articles that offer more hints, tips and ideas: Twitter: a step-by-step guide to getting started Twitter quickstart guide Twitter Marketing: Why you don’t need to mass follow users Finally, to get you up to speed here are links to the Twitter pages of the people on the network who I know are on it, if you are on as well make sure to leave a comment below with a link: Me, Craig McGinty Phil Voice Nicky Patterson

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Phil Voice April 27, 2009 at 7:38am

A helpful post, as always, from Craig:-0))

Another useful feature If you are using a blogging platform such as Typepad is the facility to send your blog headline and URL directly to Twitter when posting.

Both Typepad and Blogger are on Twitter too so you can follow developments or be pointed to other good blogs and bloggers by scanning their feed.

I have to admit to being fairly slow on the Twitter uptake but in the last couple of weeks, I have started using it more and more - and, what's more, I have noticed that there seems to be a bit of a spike in my traffic too.