Found this really simple, 7 step process on how to get started with Twitter. Forget following just the people you know, expand your reach, and find people who are interested in the same things you are:
1. Pick a topic the person is passionate about.
2. Go to http://search.twitter.com and run a search on the term.
3. Find an interesting tweet or post about the topic, and click through to the profile of the person who posted it. If the profile looks interesting, follow that person. Follow a few folks like this.
4. Start a conversation, reply to one of the posts as if you had started a conversation in line at the supermarket.
5. Look for someone sharing a useful website or blog post related to the topic, click through to the blog and consider subscribing to it. Maybe reply to the author via comment or back on Twitter to let them know what you thought.
6. Spend a few minutes in the conversation and see what happens. Try again the next day.
7. Repeat.
via How to Show The Value of Twitter In 2 Minutes or Less | :: a thousand cuts :: adam cohen’s blog.
The real value comes in networking at geek oriented events. A whole other conversation is going on at most conferences among those on Twitter. Find out if there is a hashtag, signified with a # instead of an @ address- and watch the conversation there. Guaranteed you’ll meet more people through twitter than by trying to make small talk at the breaks over soda.
At geek tech conferences, there is almost always a “backchannel” going on these days over twitter. Audiences are sharing their thoughts in 140 characters or less, in real time about the speaker using a #hashtag.
In fact, almost every sporting event, television show, mass audience, now has a mass conversation tool. But, typically- its only for people “in the know.”
Now, we have teachers utilizing the hashtag to engage a classroom- with the conversation projected on screen in the classroom:
Teachers are always trying to combat student apathy and University of Texas at Dallas History Professor, Monica Rankin, has found an interesting way to do it using Twitter in the classroom.
Rankin uses a weekly hashtag to organize comments, questions and feedback posted by students to Twitter during class. Some of the students have downloaded Tweetdeck to their computers, others post by SMS or by writing questions on a piece of paper. Rankin then projects a giant image of live Tweets in the front of the class for discussion and suggests that students refer back to the messages later when studying.
I’ve started using twitter to take notes when at events, coming back to a tweet stream that captured in realtime not just what I was thinking- but feedback from my followers.
Watch as social media and social networking in realtime and in real space becomes normalized behavior in more places over time.
Sharing this link to 100 twitter applications and tools and a few links to Twitterers to follow:
Here, we’ll take a look at 100 tools that can help twittering teachers make the most out of this helpful microblogging tool.
via Top 100 Tools for the Twittering Teacher | Best Colleges Online.
Twitter is fast becoming one of the more useful tools in the social media toolbox. Take some time to look and explore the tools, and then go sign up for a twitter account. We’re www.twitter.com/TheNextWave