Everybody seems to be talking about Twitter and almost every website seems to be asking you to follow them. If you are unsure about how to even use Twitter, you may be starting to feel left out. This article will follow on from my previous post, “What is Twitter?“, and is a practical guide to setting up an account and getting started.

The first step is to go to Twitter and create an account.

Username: This can be your company or professional name is you are planning to use this account to be the official Twitter voice. I personally use my own name as my Twitter username as I post a mixture of both personal and professional tweets. Also the majority of our clients meet with me, so it made sense to make my Twitter username personable.

Complete your profile information.

Picture: This can be your company brand or logo or just a good picture of yourself. Many Twitter accounts that are set up are then abandoned. By updating the profile picture, you profile is less likely to look abandoned.

Name: You can chose whether to use your company name or real name. The name can help people to find you if they are searching for you.

Bio: It is important to make those 160 characters work for you. This could be information about what your organisation offer, the industry you are involved in or a little about your skills.

Start following you family and friends.

You can use the search bar at the top to search for people by their names, even if you do not know their Twitter profile name. When you carry out the search, you will get a list of people and a list of tweets that match your criteria.

Start Tweeting

Use the text box with the prompt “compose a tweet” to write a message and/or post an interesting link .

To publicly message another Twitter user, put the ʻ@ʼ symbol directly before their username; so any tweet with @teenum will be directed to Teenum, but will be publicly visible. This public message is called a mention in Twitter-jargon.

Direct messages, or DM’s, are private messages that can be sent between profiles that are following each other.