Over the past several months different friends have told me ‘you have to join Facebook’ and ‘you really need to be on Twitter’.
I signed up for Facebook 3 weeks ago. I’m having a BLAST catching up with high school friends. Totally did not anticipate that part of it. When you grow up in a small town you immediately get friended by every other person on Facebook that grew up in the same small town. And we really do all know each other. Kids I babysat for (Hi Jenny!). Even my mom is on Facebook.
So Facebook basically took care of itself. I used my real name, loaded a picture, typed in way too much personal information that will be stored in a database managed by a company that says they can use it for whatever purpose they want for the rest of eternity. Easy enough.
Twitter on the other hand is not as intuitive to me. Here are my main questions:
1) What should my name be? I tried KathyMack but that’s taken. I then signed up for pinkchalk. I had second thoughts that maybe that was too vague so I signed up for PinkChalkStudio. What do the Twitter experts say a good name is? What about capitlizing the letters in the name?
2) How much and how often do you Twitter? I have to be honest, I poked around a bit and it doesn’t make sense to me. What do you Twitter about? Do you use it for your business or is it mainly personal fun?
3) Any links to good articles on how to Twitter?
I realize there are much more important things going on in the world than me worrying about how to Twitter. Please take this post with a bit of humor. Any advice on either Twitter or Facebook would be much appreciated!
updated 3/28/09: what a crash course, thank you everyone! OK, I read all the links and I’m definitely going with the shorter name of ‘pinkchalk’. You know, so it’s easier to do all those @ things 
I’m not an expert (just joined last week), but it’s not too difficult – basically its either like a Facebook update – or if you have good deals or other quick announcements to make, use it for that. Sometimes its stuff that’s not enough for a blog post – or it could be to point readers to a blogpost.
Add a twitter feed to your blog sidebar – then people can follow you easily with the link – there are links in your settings to get the code. And based on that, I think PinkChalkStudio is a perfect name for you – keep your branding consistent.
FAQ on twitter:
http://www.brentozar.com/archive/2008/08/twitter-101/
Heather at Croqzine just wrote a great post about getting started with twitter: http://croqzine.com/blog/?p=934
When you start be sure to follow me @chicaschmica
Wow! Both those links were amazing. There’s more to Twitter than I ever could have imagined! Thank you!
I don’t know about Twitter, not a Twitterer, but I am a Facebook addict, lack of blogging corresponds directly with time spent on Facebook. Beware it will suck you in!
Oy, sorry I can’t help you there. I’m still Facebook and Twitter resistant, don’t think I can keep up with Twitter and I supposed I’m a little hesitant to catch up with high school friends when I’m at least 60 pounds more than I was back then! But I just wanted to thank you for my special mail package, which I received yesterday. You’re so good to me!
Hi Kathy! I got sucked in by FB and Twitter too, and sometimes I just don’t get any of it! Two things: on FB, decide early who you want to “friend” because you may get requests from folks who know you through someone else, and you have no idea who they are. I’ve gotten a lot of these, because my high school graduating class was 700 people, and of course I didn’t know them all (or know that many of them well enough to want to keep up 25 years down the road). I’ve just ignored some of them.
OTOH, I sent a friend request to someone who judged one of my quilts, then she visited my blog later to make more comments about it and tell me who she was. This was last summer, and by now, she didn’t remember who I was, so she politely sent a message back:
I can’t remember you, I’m sorry. Can you remind me how I know you?
I thought that was soooo polite (and I reminded her how she “knew” me and now we’re friends and have had lovely discussions about the Bernina 830!), and resolved to use it next time I get one of those requests where I don’t really know the person. Unless the person is a quilter, that is, and then it’s “Yes, let’s be friends,” because we all are already anyway!
Other than that, here’s a link to a list of twitter tools that you can check out, and use whatever you think might work for you after you’ve got a handle on Twitter:
http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/03/17/99-essential-twitter-tools-and-applications/
I also use the Twitter app in FB, so that when I update Twitter, that update is sent to FB to display in my status. Then you don’t have to do this stuff twice! Here’s the link to the how to:
http://www.twistimage.com/blog/archives/twitter-will-update-your-facebook-status-heres-how/
Have fun!
I’ve been looking into using Twitter to market the company I work for, which is a not-for-profit trade association. Here is a link to a good post if you want to promote an event or conference; this also has some links to some good tools to use for marketing: http://www.twitip.com/twitter-trumps-online-conference-six-steps-for-using-twitter-for-your-conference-or-event/. And here is a link to some good Twitter apps: http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/03/17/99-essential-twitter-tools-and-applications/. I personally think PinkChalkStudio is a good name — there’s no questioning if it’s really you, as someone might question “PinkChalk.” Good luck!
Hi, Kathy!
Your name should reflect your “brand” if you are using Twitter to extend your blog or to further connect with yoru readers … so “PinkChalkStudio” would be good – but it is somewhat long. Remember, you can only write 140 characters, so when someone replies to you (your name is in the the reply), your name would be taking a bit of space. The same holds true if someone re-tweets you – your name would take up a lot of the space. What about PinkChalk?
The best twitter tip website, I think, it TwiTip: http://www.twitip.com/ which is run by Darren Rowse, who is also behind Problogger.net and Digital Photography Shool. He has plenty of people guest posting the most useful twitter info…
As far as what you “tweet” about (yeah, kinda weird, but anyway), most bloggers or etsy-folk use it as an extension of their blog or their interests. So providing links to articles and topics of interest for people in your niche is a good idea… also, just what you’re up to with your niche-related stuff, and of course, a peppering of personal commentary is ok, too.
Well, if you get on Twitter, look me up! @MaryCorbet
Good luck!
Mary
I use Twitter basically as a giant chat room with a bunch of my crafty friends. But my LYS just got an account and they use it for things like announcing sales & new merchandise, reminding people of events coming up at the store, etc, which I’ve really liked being subscribed to, and which is serving exactly its intended purpose for them (Them: New Cotton Classic shipment in today! Me: Ooh, don’t I need some of that?)
I’d second @MaryCorbet though: just PinkChalk instead of PinkChalkStudio–shorter names work better with the format.
honestly, i refuse to twitter. i already do facebook and i have my blog. i’m new to both really but i find that they take alot of time already – time that i can spend creating. but we do have to spend some time social networking, don’t we? but we can’t spread ourselves too thin. see this discussion http://socialmediaart.ning.com/forum/topics/how-to-prioritize-im-drowning
also i reposted a wonderful article from Molly Gordon here http://burdart.blogspot.com/2009/03/determining-your-businesss-specialty.html it’s on your business but i really think it can apply to spreading yourself around on the networking sites as well. naturally, this is just my personal opinion.
oh, and i find that i ignore alot of the people who do send their “tweets” over to facebook because it’s gotten to be just spam. “check out my products” blah blah blah
Ooh! Great answers here – will definitely have to check all these resources out! Most of what i know about Twitter I learned from Lisa Call – have you been keeping up with her blog lately? I’m going to try to keep my tweets Art related, but not commercials. Or if I’m doing something especially interesting sounding…Anyway, I’m headed over to Twitter right now tweet about the new little art house I just made!
I have just recently learned how to use Facebook properly, and I’m not on Twitter, but I’d comment because your post title “How do I Twitter?” made me think you were doing an Elizabeth Barrett Browning reference…. How do I Twitter? Let me count the ways…I twitter to the depth and breadth and height My soul can reach….
it’s a cool image.
Ahh the time suck that is twitter and facebook! I didn’t get twitter until I realized I could follow people that had valuable information for me. I also follow a few friends and bloggers, but when I figured out I could get news and shop updates and stuff like that it really took off for me. I use twitter and facebook completely differently — facebook is Me, twitter is my online persona, so to speak. I do the status updates differently as well. I don’t know my twitter followers very well, for the most part, so I treat twitter as mini-blog entries whereas facebook is something I would tell a real friend. I do really, REALLY hate twitter spam and I do think there’s a fine line between twittering useful information and just spamming people. There are a lot of Etsy folks on twitter, for example, and some seem to just beg for people to buy stuff from them while some people post really useful links and information. I don’t know how to define it though. Good luck in the venture, and I’ll be sure to follow you! I hardly ever look at my blog reader any more, so I’m glad you’re there
I don’t care about anyone from high school except for my friend Sarah (who I am in constant contact with anyway), and I know nothing about twitter (although I have to admit that ONE DAY my curiosity will get the best of me) so I say: “the heck with them, I prize my anonymity!”
Yay! I have started following you so get tweeting! I love it, it is such a fabulous way to quickly express yourself and be connected to all different types of people. Hope you enjoy it as much as I do.
Kate
(@allfivehorizons)
I just joined Twitter 3 days ago. I kept saying I didn’t care who was in line @ Starbucks. However, when i took a peek I was hooked. I am still working my way around, but it’s fun.
Will I see you in Pgh?
Thanks so much for this post. I’m on facebook for friends and family. And I created a twitter account, but I haven’t done anything at all with it. I will definitely be checking out the links in the comments.