Video: What is Twitter?

What is Twitter? This is easily the question I’ve heard the most since I started working in Internet Marketing. A lot of people just don’t get Twitter, and they want to know about it. More accurately, they don’t just want to know about it—they want to know what the big freaking deal is about it. I can sense irritation in their voice as they try to figure out what’s so special about the little social network with the funny name, and they wonder if they’re missing out on something huge.

I really don’t get tired of answering the question but I eventually realized that I was giving lots of different people the same answer over and over again so I figured it was worth making a video about.

So here you go: this video explains everything you need to know about Twitter in under five minutes. (Well, not everything you need to know… but hopefully enough for you to get started.) Oh yeah: if you’d like to follow Me on Twitter, click here: Ron Stauffer

And on the note, if you want to get started, here are some links to the tools I mention in the video:

• Twitter.com
• Twitter Desktop for Mac
• Twitter for iPhone
• Twitter for Android
• TweetDeck
• Buffer
• Echofon
• Seesmic
• Hootsuite

(Did you like this video? If so, check out my other video: Why Use Online Video?)

Video Transcript

What is Twitter? Hi. I’m Ron Stauffer. I’m here to tell you about the #1 question I get asked more than any other. What is Twitter? Twitter? Tweeter? Tweetbook? Tweetin? Facetweet? That Bird Thing? (Wait…thats 6 questions) What is it? How do I use it? And who cares? So you’ve heard of blogging right? You know where people get on their computers and they write down anything and everything that comes to their mind whether anybody actually cares or reads it? Twitter’s just like that, but it’s not blogging, it’s microblogging. So you can still share all those unexciting, fabulously boring, mundane details of your life with everybody who cares…But you have to do it concisely.

“This morning I had cheerios for breakfast. LOL.” To get started all you have to do is vist Twitter.com to start a free account. Then you can start tweeting. All you have to do is type whatever you want to share in the little box and hit that tiny grey button at the bottom that says: “tweet”. Just remember you can still share everything under the sun, just gotta limit it to 140 characters. Because twitter limits the number of words and numbers you can use in a post, you can still share everything you want about your dog loving his pepperoni sausage. Just remember you’re gonna have to get really comfortable with abbreviations or keeping your ideas short and to the point.

Oh yeah, one thing. You have to have followers. Who are followers? They’re the people who are so interested in what you are saying that they want to be notified every time you post an update. So what’s the big idea anyway? Why are people on twitter and and how can businesses use it? Lots of ways, but the answer ultimately lies with what industry you are in. Twitter was originally created so people could answer the question: “What are you doing right now?” But what’s amazing, is the powerful tool that its turned in to. Twitter was made for the purpose of telling all your friends and family that: You’re waking up, you’re sitting down in your chair, you’re getting up out of your chair, you’re getting in the car, you’re driving to the movie theater, you’re at the movie theater. “Standing in line at Justin Bieber concert. Totally stoked out of my mind. OMG! OMG!”

But Twitter’s morphed into something far more valuable than that. these days, businesses use twitter to tell people what they’re up to, new products they’re offering, new services, what’s happening in their industry and other things that people actually find important. You can also share photos and videos. A news station can use Twitter to show breaking news stories as they happen. Large companies that frequently hire lots of staff will often times create a twitter account just for their HR department to post new job openings. Sports teams can tweet their scores or game plays as they happen. If you don’t have a smartphone but you’re dying to get in on the twitter action, that’s ok. You can send Twitter a text message with your phone and Twitter will post your tweet for you. you can even decide what kind of information you want to see on Twitter using hashtags. A hashtag is a pound sign and then a word or two about what you’re interested in. “Let’s see. hashtag: #ladygaga…wait how do you spell gaga?”

It’s also extremely versatile. You can use Twitter on the web just by visisting Twitter.com or you can download the desktop app to tweet from your computer or you can download the iphone or android app to tweet from your phone. There are several programs you can use to help make managing your Twitter account a little bit easier. Some of those include: Tweetdeck, Buffer, Echofon, Seismic and the biggest of all Hootsuite. Please just remember if you sign up for Hootsuite, its called hootsuite, not hooter! The beauty of twitter is that its free, it’s simple to use and its lightning fast. So start a free Twitter account today, then you can tell all of your family and friends: “Follow me on Twitter!”