Finding People You Know
Twitter’s no fun and not very useful if you’re not part of the conversation, and to be part of the conversation, you need to follow people so you can see what they are saying. The easiest way to get started with following others is to see which people from your contact lists are already on Twitter. Here’s how:
1) Login to your Twitter account.
2) Click on “Find People” at the top of the page.
3) Click on the “Find Friends” tab.
4) Click on one of the email services listed (Gmail, Yahoo!, or AOL), enter your username and password, and click the “Find friends” button. Twitter doesn’t save this information, and it’s transmitted securely so there shouldn’t be any issues.
5) You will then see a list of your contacts who either already have a Twitter account or don’t. For those who already have a Twitter account, you can just click the “Follow” button to start following them. Otherwise, you will need to click the “Send request” button to invite them to create a Twitter account.
6) Repeat steps 4 and 5, if you have contacts with the other email services.
Now, you will see your friends’ Tweets in your feed. To engage your friends, start responding with your own Tweets so they know you’re using Twitter as well.
Finding Other People to Follow
One of the benefits of Twitter is helping others spread the word about their product, service, or expertise so they will do the same for you. It’s a good idea to follow people you don’t know personally, but you are interested in what they have to say on their blog or elsewhere online, or you are interested in the subject they cover.
By following them, you will stay current with what’s on their mind, but you will also have a chance to distribute their message to your own followers. I’ll talk about getting your own followers in the next posting.
Here’s how to get started with finding other people to follow on Twitter in a particular topic that interests you:
1) From the “Find People”, page, click on the “Browse Suggestions” tab.
2) Click on “Business” on the left side of the page.
3) Click on the “Follow” button for Evan Williams, CEO of Twitter.
4) Repeat steps 2 and 3 to follow other people.
Whenever you follow someone, he or she will receive an email notification that they have a new follower unless they have disabled this notification.
You’re off to a solid start on Twitter! Following other people is the first step to getting others to follow you, and I will talk more about this in my next posting.
You might also like:
