Dear WordCount:

Do you actually read Twitter because it’s fun and interesting, and not because you think you ought to? Do you get it on your mobile device, or do you just go there and scroll down through the endless list of disconnected tweets?

Please help me understand why it’s popular.

Thanks,

Jennie Phipps

Dear Jennie:

I use Twitter and don’t consider it a waste. Here’s how or what I use it for:

Following the news – I use Twitter’s Lists feature to set up what amounts to daily news feeds for topics I write about. You can see my lists here. I cover business and finance for a couple publications, so I set up a business and finance list. I also write about people over 40, so I have a boomer list set up for that. Because this blog tracks the media business I set up a media list. I also have list that’s like a headline news service, another to keep track of what’s happening in Portland and so on.

Gathering research – I use the Search feature as an Google search alternative to research topics I’m reporting. The Saved Searches feature is great for keeping up with topics I track on a regular basis. If you’re at a conference or interested in a conference that people are tweeting from you can search on the hashtag, save it, then read the tweet stream like a live blog of the event. I use this to keep track of what people on Twitter are saying about the blogathon by creating a Saved Search for #blog2011.

Finding work – Two years ago, I used Twitter to say hi to a magazine publisher. She said hi back, I pitched a story idea, she liked it, gave me the editor’s email address, I wrote her and wound up with an assignment. In my experience, that doesn’t happen often. It’s more common that I use Twitter to crowdsource a story, like when I wrote about social games for SecondAct.com. I identified myself as a reporter and asked people over 40 who liked to play Words With Friends to contact me. And boy did they.

Soliciting story ideas – I also follow a lot of public relations people on Twitter and add them to my lists so any news they have flows into those streams. Just the other day I saw something from a PR guy at a company that produces reports on a subject I’m writing about. I followed him, sent an @reply message asking him to follow me back and send me a DM so I could ask him a question in private. When he did, I introduced myself and asked if he knew someone at the company I could interview and gave him my email. I interviewed one of the company’s division presidents within the week.

Promoting my blog - As some people here  know, I also use it to promote the WordCount Blogathon. I also use it to promote posts as soon as I write them. Over the past year, Twitter has become the No. 1 source of incoming traffic to my blog, and I heard several other writers say the same thing at the 2011 ASJA writer’s conference last weekend.

Staying connected on the go – I routinely check out Twitter from my smartphone; I use a Droid, but there are Twitter apps for the iPhone and BlackBerry, and you can add your Twitter account to Flipboard and other iPad apps.

Hosting live chats – I hosted my very first live chat on Twitter for the blogathon wrap party close to two years ago. Last year so many people turned out, I decided to host monthly chats to get to know other freelance writers, learn about writing tools and trends and build up a community for this blog. At first I was intimidated: would anybody show up – they did. Would Twitter crash and leave me stranded – yes, but only once and we rescheduled. These days, news organizations want editors who can also function as online community managers: showing them you can host an online chat is one way to get a foot in the door. Here are some tips on how to host a live Twitter chat.

I know many writers and bloggers are still learning Twitter. Here are some previous posts that delve deeper into the basics:

• There is no such thing as a dumb Twitter question
• Twitter true confessions: I was wrong
• A writer’s guide to getting the most out of Twitter
• The use and abuse of Twitter to flog your blog
• Guest post: Blogging and Twitter, the perfect match
• Lessons learned from a year on Twitter
• Williams wants Twitters’ List feature to ‘go nuts’
• My TwiTip guest post: When 1 Twitter account isn’t enough

And here are more:

As a journalist, I’ve found Twitter to be extremely useful. Here are 10 ways that I and other reporters, writers, freelancers and editors use it:

1. As a news service – I use Twitter’s List feature to create a list of news organizations that I call the Daily News I scan in the a.m. to find out what’s happening in the world. I have another list for Portland so I know what’s going on where I live.

2. To track sources – I maintain lists of sources, analysts, companies, etc., on a couple subjects I write about regularly, including business and finance, workplace issues, boomers and media. New to a beat, or starting to do background research for a story? Get up to speed by finding and following lists created by other reporters who write on the topic.

3. To crowdsource for stories – Pose a question to your Twitter followers and see what happens. One caveat if you do this: always identify yourself as a reporter when throwing questions out there so people understand their responses are on the record and could be quoted. Also, ask people to send you their contact info (via DM if they prefer) so you have a mechanism for following up – you may need to to find out more about them or if the publication you’re writing for requires this.

4. To interview sources – Yes, I’ve actually conducted short interviews via DMs.

5. To broadcast links to stories and posts I’ve written – I routinely tweet links to stories I write for the publications I work for and for these blog posts (which could be why you’re reading this). When I tweet links, I use bit.ly to shorten the URL. For blog posts, I use the link shortener that’s built into WordPress. According to Twitter etiquette, it’s perfectly acceptable to use the service to promote your own work, just don’t make it the only thing you ever use it for.

6. To catch up with friends. Twitter’s a great substitute for an instant message or chat service for sending a quick “Hi” to colleagues or friends during the work day, especially people who might live across the country or who you don’t see on a regular basis. It’s also great for organizing colleagues or friends who might be attending the same conference to get together for coffee or making other kinds of inpromptu plans.

7. For regularly scheduled live chats. Twitter is my venue of choice for the writers’ chat I host on the last Wednesday of the month called WordCount Last Wednesday. To create or join a chat, you’ll need to use the appropriate chat handle – usually an acronym or short phrase – that includes the hashtag symbol, Twitter’s signal that the tweets thus marked are part of a larger conversation. If you’d like to check out my chat, use the hashtag #wclw and join us for the next one on Wednesday, March 30, at 10 a.m. PST, when my guest will be Marla Beck, a life coach for writers. Read my Q&A with Marla here: WordCount Q&A: Marla Beck, Life Coach for Writers. When you participate in a chat, using a Twitter add-on like TweetChat automatically adds the appropriate hashtag to your tweets and makes it easier to follow the conversation.

8. For live tweeting a meeting. Share what’s happening at a meeting, seminar or conference you’re covering with readers or colleagues by live tweeting. These days, most conferences and meetings have a designated hashtag. In the next week or two, for example, Twitter should be deluged with people sharing #SXSW tweets from the South by Southwest conference, which happens every March.

9. For sharing interesting things I’ve read or that other people have read or written. A good way to make friends and influence people on Twitter is to RT (retweet), forward or otherwise share what they are saying, reading or writing. And who knows? Some of the people you RT could do the same for you.

10. To tweet for a client. I regularly tweet links to stories for GettheInsideEdge.com, the CFO website I edit for American Express. I tweet about Inside Edge from my primary Twitter account and from a separate one I set up for Amex. If you’re tweeting from multiple accounts, using a Twitter add on such as HootSuite makes it easier, and allows you to pre-publish posts.

What I don’t use Twitter for very much is soliciting business – I think that’s happened one time. Every writer’s experience will be slightly different, but this is what’s working for me.

How are you using Twitter?

Happy Twitter anniversary to me. I joined Twitter exactly one year ago today. It took a little convincing, but once I figured out how to incorporate it into my freelance business I never looked back.

Earlier today, I tweeted the following lessons learned from my first year on the microblogging service, 17 in honor of joining on Dec. 17, 2008. Every one of them is 140 characters or less.

What I’ve learned:

1 – Be real. People can see through a fake, even online. Therefore, don’t use auto–DMs.

2 – One note may work for a samba, but not online. Don’t tweet on same topic 24/7, even if you’re here for work.

3 – Don’t drink and tweet. But if you do, the next day, delete the tweets. (I got that tip from a Twitterati.)

4 – You don’t have to DM every new follower, esp. once you hit 2,000+. But do DM those you want to know better.

5 – Lists are great organizational tools, but if you follow a lot of people, building them’s a bear.

6 – While good in theory, #FF is hard to keep up, especially if like me, all deadlines seem to fall on Fridays.

7 – Twitter is just a tool. It will not find you customers or make you rich. You do that. All it does is help.

8 – As a writer, Twitter forces me to be concise and use colorful words and phrases. It’s my robo-copydesk.

9 – Twitter is not texting. Some people may be OK with abbreviating everything; for me, that’s too hard to read.

10 – Hashtags and conferences go together. There’s no better way to promote one or report from one. However…

11 – …As recent events have shown, Twitter at meetings can lead to mean-spirited back-channel snark.

12 – Saved Search is handy for tracking subjects you’ll be writing about. I use it like Google News alerts.

13 – Trending Topics is worthless, unless you use it as an obituary tracker. Otherwise, it’s too easy to game.

14 – Spam, porn, phishing, malware, scams: as Twitter’s user base has grown, so has its smarmy underbelly.

15 – Twitter is a conversation, which means you can’t do all the talking. Stop, look, listen, and retweet.

16 – Twitter collapses the space between you and that famous publisher or CEO, but you still gotta make your case.

17 – Blogging and Twitter go together like cheese and crackers: you can have one without the other but it’s not as good.

That’s it. If you’ve used Twitter a year or longer, what wisdom can you share?

By the way, I wrote the first draft of this on Twitter in real time. It was easier than I thought.

Which got me to thinking -  just how many Twitter accounts does one person need?

I have one, all-purpose Twitter domain, @michellerafter, and I use it for everything – hunting for sources, promoting a story I’ve written, announcing when I’ve posted something new on this blog or just ruminating about the vagaries of freelance life.

But would I be better off separating the different ways I use Twitter into their own entities? Should I have one account for the tech writing I do, and another for my HR and careers stories? Am I sending my Twitter followers mixed signals by mashing together all aspects of my work life?

I have no idea. So I’m asking  – what do you do? How many Twitter accounts do you have? Please take a minute and fill out the poll that follows. If you’re reading this through an RSS reader or email, please click through to the blog to take the poll. Ff you have multiple Twitter accounts, please consider leaving a comment explaining what you use them for.  I’ll follow up with my thoughts on the results in a future post.

Take Our Poll

When you’re learning to drive, are you dumb because you don’t know how much pressure to apply to the gas pedal? No.

When you’re learning to dance, are you dumb because you step on your partner’s toes? Clumsy maybe, but not dumb. Just learning.

It’s the same with Twitter. If you just signed up – and lots of people have only recently discovered Twitter -  and are still getting the hang of it you’re not going to know everything there is to know about using it.

And that’s OK. Think of how long it took to get used to Facebook, or blogging or using Microsoft Word for that matter – a lot of people still don’t use all the features of Word and it’s been around forever.

So don’t apologize because you haven’t figured out everything there is to know about Twitter. You’ll get there eventually.

There are a few things I’ve learned since starting to use it that I’m happy to share:

* Introduce yourself. Once you sign up, the most important thing you can do is tell people who you are – fill out your profile, add a picture, link to your blog or Website. People decide who to follow or who to accept follows from based on what they see in a profile, so give them plenty of information to work with.

* Write tight and bright. Twitter limits messages to 140 characters. That forces you to be concise without being cryptic. You can accomplish that by using abbreviations and emoticons, or just limiting what you’re writing to one well constructed sentence or idea. If you want to add a link, use one of the services that shrinks links, like Tiny URL.

* Learn the lingo. A DM is a direct message that only the person you’re sending it to can see. An @replies is a message you send to a specific person that everyone else on Twitter can see too. It’s like talking to one person in a crowded room so other people can eavesdrop on your conversation, and possibly cut in if they’re interested – which in many cases you want them to do.

* Pay it forward. When you see RT in someone’s Twitter post it means Retweet. Use it to send a post or a snippet of a post that somebody else wrote to your own Twitter network. When you RT someone it’s like paying them a compliment because you’re basically telling the world they’ve said something interesting. RTs are good, and the general Twitter rule of thumb is if you RT what other people say often, people will RT you in return, and that will build up your exposure, Twitter followers, people who visit your blog or Website, etc.

* Be picky. Don’t feel like you have to follow everyone who’s following you. That guy with the hairy back, the company selling time shares, the make-money-online scammers – you do not need to follow them. And if they’re spammers, you can report them by forwarding their Twitter user name to @spam.

* Get real. If all of a sudden lots of people start following you, it could be tempting to set up some kind of robo-reply to send an automated response. But that’s cheesy and Twitter users will call you on it. The whole point of Twitter – and all social networks for that matter – is connecting with people, not racking up numbers.

* Hash it out. Twitter users will mark certain tweets with hash tags – they look like this # – when they want to keep track of a particular topic, like the conversations that took place during the Super Bowl or earlier during the presidential inauguration. People who use Twitter for regularly scheduled online meetups to talk about their jobs or another shared interest use hashtags to mark their comments so their fellow meeting attendees can follow the conversation.

* Pick a path. People use Twitter for lots of different reasons – to promote their business, swap shop talk, follow the news, debate the issues, tell jokes or just hang out.  If you’re using it for something other than purely personal reasons, it’s good to think about why you’re there and how you want to be perceived, then act accordingly. I’m using Twitter to build a network of sources for the freelance writing I do – much like the LinkedIn network I’ve created. I also use it to let people know when I’ve written a new blog post or if one of my story’s has been published.

What do you want to know about Twitter but have been too afraid to ask? Leave your questions here and I’ll do my best to come up with an answer – and if I can’t, I’ll call on some Twitter-using friends – or should I call them fiends? – who can.

Meanwhile, you can find me on Twitter at @michellerafter. See you there.