Twitter 101
By Guy Warner (Tuesday, May 5th, 2009)One of the new kids on the block in Social Networking Twitter.com. Twitter can be relatively hard to understand why people are so in love with it. Regardless of your feelings toward Twitter, it is something that you can easily use to reach volunteers and voters. Plus, Republicans have latched on to Twitter and are using it very effectivly.
Today, we will cover the basics of Twitter. At a later date we will get into more advance Twitter marketing techniques.
First things first, sign up for a new Twitter account if you don’t already have one: www.Twitter.com click on the button “Get Started – Join”.
In the full name you should put you candidates name or their current title and last name. The most important choice you have to make is the username as this is what everyone will see. I suggest using something like name4mayor or name4senate etc. Choose a password and an email then create your account! Make sure to keep a record of your username and password, I like to use Google docs to store my passwords for online sites as it can easily be shared with other users.
When you login for your first time you have the option of searching through your current contacts for their Twitter account. Go ahead and do this, you can unselect anyone in your contacts that you don’t want to follow. After you go through your contacts the next thing you should do is follow us: http://twitter.com/DemocratsWin 
After that, click on settings and add your campaign information. You can upload a picture to use. I like to make my own quick image because Twitter uses a square for their icons and that can make pictures and other logos look a little weird. For my current campaign I’m just using a solid back ground with “Name for Mayor” written on it.
You may want to change your background to something else, you don’t have to do this though.
Now to start getting followers…
Promote your Twitter account on any other site you are using. Always have a link in your newsletter and from your main website. Also the golden rule on Twitter is: “You follow me, I’ll follow you.” So, when I create a new Twitter account I will do a search (click on Find People) and type in words having to do with my campaign. Democrat, Dem, Liberal, City, State…etc. Just follow as many as you can and you’ll get some follow backs to appear that you are more popular. Now, some may think this tactic is unethical but the you don’t want low numbers to hurt you… people also follow popular people.
Now, I’m sure you’re wondering what to post to your twitter account. Use twitter to promote your other social sites and always a link back to your campaign site…. ALWAYS LINK BACK TO YOUR CAMPAIGN SITE. Whenever you have a news article written about you, link to your site with the story or your site with a link to the news. Post your events, fund raising, or whatever else your campaign is up to.
A few quick Twitter things to know:
@reply – To reply to a user on Twitter use the @ sing plus their username, example: “@DemocratsWin Thanks for your support!” People can also reply to you this way. On the right hand side is a link to show all of your @replies.
Direct Message (DM) – Users can also send private messages to each other, these are called Direct Messages and often referred to as DM.
Retweet (RT) – Retweeting is pretty much forwarding someones message. You can either RT other peoples tweets or ask for yours to be example: “The Smith Campaign needs your help! We need 1000 calls this weekend vist: www.url.com! Plz rt!”
#keyword – Users will often end their tweets with #keyword. This categorizes all posts with that symbol and keyword. Some of the popular ones we use are #democrats, #obama, #websites, etc. You can end all of your tweets with #votesmith or whatever works for your campaign.
That is pretty much the basics of Twitter. Be warned Twitter can quickly become a time suck much like FaceBook and other social sites. Have a plan, set aside 15 minutes to do your Twitter and then move on: DON’T GET SUCKED IN.
Please leave any comments or questions below!
[...] This post was Twitted by DemocratsWin – Real-url.org [...]
Candidates and politicians who have merely an obligatory Twitter account (taking to heart the “Don’t Get Sucked In” advice), tweeting an update or ask here or there–instead of embracing it as a mode of personal expression and powerful tool for communication and contact with constituents/supporters–are inevitably going to be stagnant and uninteresting. Nobody wants to follow those people.