By Karen Korr
Social media is, well, pretty social. Twitter is a social platform, but Twitter is not necessarily about checking in with friends you haven’t talked to since high school. It is a great source of news and information, a way to help position yourself and your work, and a mechanism to connect with others worldwide who share your professional and personal interests. One of Twitter’s best attributes is that it gives you access to those who you might not normally interact with in your day-to-day life — from newspaper editors to sports stars to celebrities to industry experts and more across the globe.
Twitter is user-friendly, and can be only as time-consuming as you want it to be. If you have yet to set foot in the Twitterverse, here are the three main things you need to know:
A “tweet” is a message containing only 280 characters. You can also add a photo or video clip to your tweet, and still write a 280 character message.
A “retweet” is when you share a message to your timeline (which is like your homepage on Twitter) that somebody else posted. When you retweet, you can add your own 280 character message to the original tweet.
A “hashtag” is a way to tag a keyword that will make your tweet easily searchable. The symbol for a hashtag is “#,” the old number/pound sign on a rotary phone. For example, if you use “#SanDiego” or “#TheBachelor” in a tweet, anyone who searches for that hashtag can see your tweet. It’s also a way to sort the conversations on Twitter and find what you are interested in easily.
Followers are people who are interested in seeing your tweets. You can follow anyone who has a public Twitter page.
With that basic information, let’s get started. Here we go …
Setting Up Your Account
Each account needs its own, unique email address. If you plan to have separate Twitter profiles for your law firm, staff or personal profiles, each account will need to be connected to a unique email address. Tip: Set up a new Gmail for additional accounts if others are already being used.
Follow friends and colleagues, or choose to follow some suggested accounts. See what others in your field are up to, and find valuable information relative to your interests and practice.
Pick a profile picture. Choose a current — and professional — photo of yourself, or your law firm logo. Please don’t leave the default egg — nobody takes the egg seriously.
Add a header image. The SDCBA uses this space to feature event photos and Association logos, and sometimes changes it to promote upcoming programs. You can use it to highlight your law firm space, logo, staff, your favorite San Diego skyline or another photo to share more of your personality. Again, just keep it professional.
Write your bio. This is where you talk about yourself, but in a way that explains what you will be tweeting about. Good tweeters don’t address everything, just share information in areas where they are experts or where their passions lie, so it’s important to define who you are and what followers should expect.
Navigation Basics
Here are a few features you will see when you start navigating through your new Twitter account. In no way is this list exhaustive — don’t be afraid to click around and explore.
Home screen — See a real-time stream of tweets from those you follow.
Notifications — Alerts that someone has mentioned you in a tweet, followed you, responded to or liked your tweet, or retweeted you. Twitter will also notify you of other tweets.
Messages — View private conversations or messages specifically for you.
Trends for You — Trending news, Twitter mentions or hashtags tailored to what Twitter believes you are interested in following.
Search — Search for users, topics or hashtag conversations.
Reply vs. Mention — Click the comment bubble to reply to a tweet — it will go directly to them and will not show up on your feed. To mention another user in a tweet that you want to appear on your feed, for example, “Learned about technology at recent @sdcountybar program.”
Like — Showing support for a tweet — similar to Facebook.
With anything else, you are trying for the first time, start slow. Follow people or businesses you admire or are interested in and just observe for a while before jumping in. Once you get a feel for twitter’s flow, get tweeting!
Karen Korr (@fullkorrpress) is the Director of Communications and Outreach Strategy for the San Diego County Bar Association (@sdcountybar).