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What is Twitter? A Beginner’s Guide to Getting Started

It seems you can't watch a newscast, sporting event, or late night show these days without hearing mention of Twitter. The site is gaining popularity at speeds matched only by Google and Facebook. But what is it? Why is it so popular?

Wikipedia defines Twitter as:

Twitter is a social networking and micro-blogging service that enables its users to send and read other users' updates known as tweets. Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 bytes in length. Updates are displayed on the user's profile page and delivered to other users who have signed up to receive them.

Still a bit confused? In essence, Twitter allows users to post short messages which others can choose to subscribe to. People who subscribe to your updates are called your "followers", whereas when you choose subscribe to someone elses updates, you are "following" them.

Perhaps the most common misconception about twitter is that it is mostly used to let everyone know exactly what any user is doing at any particular moment. e.g. "Watching reruns of Flavor of Love" or  "just turned right on main st.". While there are certainly users who treat Twitter as a tool to update the world on what they are up to, you'll find most users tweet about topics that are of more value.

What makes twitter different than Facebook statuses, IM away messages, and the like is that the follower/followee relationship is not always a two-way street. For instance, I follow Shaq (@THE_REAL_SHAQ) because I am a huge Suns fan, and enjoy his personality. Shaq, on the other hand, does not follow me back; I imagine mostly because he likely does not find me as entertaining and is not overly concerned with what I am doing. So I can go along following Shaq and getting updates about what he is up to, while he will continue to never know I exist...

But who should I follow? you ask... Great question, lets break it down a bit.

1. For starters, we highly recommend you follow @degeeked (shameless we know).
   
2. Import your gmail (or other) contacts and follow any of your freinds or family who are using twitter. 
3. Are there others in your professional life you'd like to follow? Who is the industry genius you highly respect? The guru who's blog you read daily? Search their name and follow them.
   
4. How about your hobbies? Do you love knitting, sailing, bug collecting, etc. Search and find others who enjoy the same things; they are often a great group to follow.
   
5. What about the celeb you are secretly obsessed with? A good portion are on Twitter. Track them down and stalk away. 

But who will follow me? How do I get followers?

1. Provide good stuff - Don't fill your twitter stream with info about your cat's diet. Tweet about the same stuff you would have real world conversations with other people about.
   
2. Be active - When you only post once a month, chances are unless you are @BarackObama, you will have a bit of trouble keeping a good number of followers.
3. Be helpful - When you see a tweet from someone who needs something you can help with, send them an @ reply. They'll appreciate your help and follow in return 9 times out of 10. 
4. Get famous - doing so will allow you to skip through steps 1-3.

Still confused as to the who, what and why of Twitter? Give it a whirl, you'll get the hang of it quick. You may even find you are able find some great tweeps to connect with.