Create an account on www.twitter.com

Customise your new Twitter account

How to send a message1 2 3

- Go to www.twitter.com

- Click on ‘Sign Up’ at the right of the screen

- Follow the instructions in order to set up an account by choosing your full name, username, password and email.

Whether you will use Twitter to share information or you use it to promote products or services, it is crucial to personalise your Twitter account. Making sure that others on the Twitter can see who you are and what you do, improves your visibility and the inclusion in networks from others. Would you follow somebody who did not add anything to his or her profile? Probably not! One reason is that your profile ends up on the pile of fake accounts (e.g. spammers).

After creating a Twitter account and you are logged-in, you can click on your account name at the right top side of the page. From here you can click on ‘settings’

Under the heading ‘profile’ you can change your profile image, name, location, web address and a short bio.

You can make tweets more dynamic by using particular symbols. Through these symbols tweets are easier to use by people who read your Tweets, but also better visible by Twitter users who are not yet part of your network.

> by including @, you can create a hyperlink to Twitter accounts (i.e. @richardlalleman)

> by including #, you can create a hyperlink of a particular keyword. This hyperlink directs you the the latest tweets about this keyword (i.e. #FIFA)

> by including d, you can send direct messages to people who are part of your network, but also who added you to theirs network. This is a 1-to-1 conversations. You need to write it down as d+twitter account +text- Such as below image:

Filter the Twitter overload and proactively follow communities or brand4It is quite easy to be bombarded with information on Twitter. To avoid getting an overkill of information there are smart ways to filter what is happening on Twitter. In this step you will be explained how you need to use TweetDeck - an application that manages your Twitter account. You can download it on www.tweetdeck.com

1 = By clicking on this icon you can write your Twitter message (also known as Tweet). You have a maximum of 140 characters and if you include a website address, TweetDeck automatically shorten the URL.

2 = By clicking on the + sign you can add new columns. The first column represents

all the tweets from my network. The second column - named mentions - are messages from people who included my account name. This could be from people inside and outside your network. The third column is an overview of all the tweets with the keyword ICT4D. Similar is the fourth column which is an overview of tweets with the keyword ‘bernard van leer’. You can also include a column for your Facebook account and LinkedIn. As a result, you can only use TweetDeck to submit messages from most of your social profiles.

3 = By letting your mouse cursor hoover over the image of a person, it shows various new functionalities. These functionalities are:

= send a reply message to the person (1-to-all)

= send a direct message to the person (1-to-1)

= resend the message to your own network

= various options, like marking the message as favorite (some kind of bookmarking within Twitter), blocking the person and so forth.

© 2010 Prepared by Richard Santos Lalleman, independent consultant with RL Consultancy

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