Most people don't realize this, but Twitter is a support system for your support system. Twitter keeps you connected in real time with the people in your life, providing support to your support system itself.

Many users instinctively turn to their Twitter network when they need to commiserate over a loss for their favorite sports team, when they get a promotion or a new job, when they lose a loved one, or when anything else happens that they want to share with a supportive network of people.

Twitterers have used the service to help displaced families, victims of natural disasters, abuse victims, job-seekers, animals in need, and even researchers who need people to take part in focus groups. Twitter has also proved useful for couch-surfers, who have come to know interesting and accommodating people in different fields of expertise.

Because Twitter helps people get to know each other on a more personal level, new friends can successfully meet and interact with each other offline.

For many, Twitter has replaced search-based electronic resources (such as Yahoo!, Live Search, or Google) and become their go-to place for help and support. Depending on the nature and the strength of your network, asking your friends on Twitter (both the ones you now have and the ones you're making) for guidance or opinions can yield more detailed and varied advice and help than you might receive if you had turned to only your offline network.

Of course, Twitter isn't meant to replace your offline network of lifelong friends and family — it's a technology designed to enrich that network. While connecting with your friends on Twitter, you may meet new friends and start to get a better feel for the people (both new and old) whom you can trust.

Twitterers reach out to one other through the trials and annoyances of everyday life (such as not having enough quarters at a laundromat) to crises of every size and measure. Twitterers have been support networks when loved ones are in hospital, when couples divorce, when relationships break up, and more. When you use Twitter, your expressions of frustration and loss are often met with an immediate response. Twitter empowers humanity to act humanely.

Because all Twitterers use the same toolset and (as far as Twitter is concerned) play on the same level, it is remarkably easy to connect with people on the service. The more people you connect with, the more your follower/following numbers go up, thereby increasing the breadth of your network to a sometimes embarrassingly large number of people.

Anxious to have lots and lots of followers? First, it doesn't matter as much as you might think. Second, be patient and build a network of actual connections, not collections of usernames and large follower numbers. It takes time for people to notice you; you'll need to have posted a few updates or tweets first. But if you share posts that others find valuable (in other words, you write tweets that people find interesting or informative), your follower count will grow organically. Getting more followers may take a while, especially if you have esoteric interests, but having a following of attentive and interested listeners trumps having a large number of followers any day.

The first time you make a real, organic connection with a stranger on Twitter, it might feel a little weird, but it's also a bit thrilling. Whether you do something as simple as get (or give) a much-needed answer to a question, connect for business, or bond over something fun (such as music or sports), you've just made your first Twitter-friend.

In its early stages, Twitter went through some serious technological growing pains while it got more popular, leading to significant site downtime and unacceptable levels of quality of service. But the power of the connections and the format of the service kept it going. Without that network of connectivity, no one who uses Twitter would have had the patience to not only stick around while the people behind the service worked out the kinks, but also to embrace the problems and create solutions.

One of the most common issues with Twitter during its early days was downtime — the server frequently became overloaded with too many users writing too many updates. Although users couldn't access their Twitter accounts, the development team was nice enough to let you know what was going on: In place of whatever screen you expected to see, Twitter returned with a graphic of birds holding a whale out of the water. The picture and euphemism for Twitter down time was born: the Fail Whale, pictured in Figure 12-1.

So, what does all this connectedness have to do with you? If you listen to longtime Twitter users talk about it, you may start to feel like there are a whole lot of shared memories and assumptions that you're not a part of. Don't worry: New people are joining Twitter all the time. From the period of November 2008 until the final touches were put on this book, Twitter doubled at least three times. That means pretty much everyone is new, and you shouldn't feel shy about what came before. We're just filling you in on it so that you have some idea how these past feel-good moments apply to you.

For one thing, Twitter's past has established the underlying tone, lexicon, and conventions on Twitter. Also, the camaraderie among Twitter users is based on trust, and if you want people to trust you on Twitter (just like if you want people to trust you in any other circumstance), you really ought to give as much (or more) than you get back. To be effective, you really need to add value to the Twitter streams of others and act in a way that inspires trust. You will be rewarded with interesting new connections, ideas, and even lifelong (virtual and real life) friends.

Figure 12.1. The Fail Whale appears when Twitter's traffic exceeds their server capacity.

In life, the word friend can have a number of different meanings. But on Twitter (and on most of the Internet), a friend is someone with whom you share a connection. Many Twitter users naturally follow people they know and trust; over time, however, many people start interacting with strangers. It's therefore not unusual to hear about the friends and real-life connections that people make on Twitter.

At first, you might have trouble believing it. Most people start out feeling like the stranger at a cocktail party, and existing Twitter users might not start a meaningful interaction with you right away. But most people will say hello and expect you to respond to them and tell them a bit about you — just as they would in a real conversation. Well, it is a real conversation.

Making friends on Twitter is much like making friends in the real world: If two people have things in common (for example, coming from the same home town), share a common interest (such as politics), or simply find each other fascinating, they may become friends. In fact, Twitter's interface makes it pretty easy to figure out if someone is worth following — just look at the person's Twitter Profile page, read her bio, check out her timeline, and follow her if she seems interesting.

Twitter users tend to share something unique or telling about themselves in their Twitter Profile page, either inside their biographies or URLs — or both. So, if you receive a flurry of tweets welcoming you to the service, take a look through those people's Profile pages and URLs to get a better feel for who they are, and whether you'd want to strike up a conversation with them ... and then do so, if you want!

If you express interest in other people and what they say or do, they tend to reciprocate. In general, people love to know that you're interested in what they have to say, in real life and on Twitter.

You can find people with whom you want to start conversations through the public timeline, but if you want to look for individuals who share your interests, you can quickly and easily find those people by using Twitter Search (see Chapter 9) to see who's already talking about your interests. Laura frequently challenges new users to search for the most obscure keywords around their work or their favorite hobbies, to find people they have something special in common with.

Searching for topics of interest

Conversations crop up all the time on Twitter, so if you want to see what people are saying about something you're interested in, search for it.

Say that you're a huge cupcake fan and want to connect with other pastry buffs, so you want to see what people are saying. You can do this simply by running a Twitter Search for cupcakes. (We cover Twitter Search in detail in Chapter 9.)

Figure 12-2 shows a sample search for cupcakes. A recent search result, "about to bake cupcakes!<3<3" depicts a woman who seems excited at the prospect of making her cupcakes (those <3 characters are meant to be little sideways hearts showing how she loves cupcakes). By way of starting a conversation, you @reply to her, "I'm about to make cupcakes as well! What's your favorite recipe?" The two of you can go from there and may happen to start a relationship about your mutual love for baking cupcakes. The fancy name for this is social object theory — the idea that two people who discover a common interest are more likely to form some kind of direct connection to one another because of their connection to (and feelings for) the shared interest. Put differently, a whole lot of what goes on on Twitter is about "What do we have in common?" more than it is about "What are you doing?"

Or maybe you find the prospect of maple cupcakes intriguing. That user seems like a great person to ask for a recipe if you want to make them, too!

Note

While you're going through the public timeline or the search results to find people who have information you want or people with whom you want to interact, you might feel tempted to try to direct message them. However, direct messaging works only if the person is following you. And because, in all likelihood, you haven't talked to them yet, they're probably not following you. Start a conversation by replying to them directly, for example: "@AliciaSue8 hey! Hey you! Maple cupcakes sound fantastic! Where'd you find that recipe?"

On Twitter, you'll find yourself getting to know people a lot better than you expected. Because Twitter profiles link to other resources and relevant information on their profile owners, you can get a pretty good sense of who people are. So, Twitter-based relationships often transition into relationships in real life. (Or, as some techies abbreviate it, IRL.)

Figure 12.2. Searching for cupcakes.

Twitter-based events

Through conversations on Twitter, many smaller communities have cropped up. The Twitter-based community occasionally organizes meet-ups in real life — the common thread being that they're all part of a community from Twitter. As with nearly every term relating to Twitter, it should come as no surprise that these meet-ups are sometimes referred to as tweetups.

Because Twitter is just another medium by which people connect, and because the medium allows you to easily build relationships, you may not see meeting offline as such a stretch. In our experience, because Twitter connections are based on trust within a community (which you can measure by seeing who people talk to, what they say, and what they're like), meeting people offline doesn't feel as taboo as it used to.

In fact, because Twitter makes reaching out to new people so easy, some people have had great success in meeting people in the most random of places — for example, in between flights during a layover.

Say that you're traveling from New Jersey to Colorado with a layover in Texas. You might send an update to Twitter: "Flying EWR to DIA, via IAH. Anyone care for a game of Scrabble during my 2-hour layover?" A fellow traveler might be, out of curiosity or boredom, searching Twitter for new people to meet and might take you up on your offer.

The real Shaq story

At first, Jesse Bearden didn't believe that his friend Sean was getting regular updates from the real Shaquille O'Neal on Twitter. After all, anyone could be masquerading as the much-loved star of 1996's smash-hit genie coming-of-age comedy, Kazaam.

So, when @THE_REAL_SHAQ updated his status to tell his followers that he was having a meal at the nearby 5 & Diner, Sean and Jesse decided to stop by and settle the identity question once and for all.

Sure enough, Shaq's truck was in the parking lot, and the man himself was tucked in a corner booth. While the two friends worked up the courage to say hello, Shaq tweeted again: "I feel twitterers around me, r there any twitterers in 5 n diner wit me, say somethin"

Within moments, they were being invited to share Shaq's booth, trade notes on Shaq's Android Googlephone versus Jesse's Window's Mobile device, and take pictures. In Shaq's words:

"To all twitterers, if u c me n public come say hi, we r not the same we r from twitteronia, we connect"

Celebrities and brands who use Twitter to build audiences become approachable on their own terms — even in real life!

You can find more information about the story at http://sesquipedalis.blogspot.com/2009/02/finally-use-for-twitter.html.

So, if you happen to be in a new town on business, or visiting friends or relatives (and need to get away), you might be able to find people in that city to meet for coffee or drinks. Twitter is another avenue by which you can find people; and, having the ability to figure out who they are before agreeing to meet them certainly benefits you. Not only can you look for common interests to talk about before meeting people (which certainly jumpstarts the awkward early phases of any conversation), you can also make such meetings safer by screening people before meeting up with them. Your mom was partially right about not talking to strangers, of course, but by meeting in public and by finding people you actually know in common, you can be a bit safer in making the jump to an offline connection.

In addition to impromptu tweetups, the digital-media folk on Twitter (the Twitterati) have organized and promoted a number of charity events through Twitter; two popular charity events, as of this writing, are @SM4SC (Social Media for Social Change; www. sm4sc.com), shown in Figure 12-3, and @Twestival (www.twestival.com). In just a few short weeks, @Twestival jumped to international consciousness — and headlines the world over — by drawing out 10,000 Twitterers to 200+ events in cities around the world. When all was said and done, a massive series of tweetups on February 12, 2009 raised $250,000 for charity: water (www.charitywater.org) to build safe, clean drinking water wells in developing nations. In April 2009 the main @twestival organizer Amanda Rose (@amanda) traveled to Ethiopia with charity: water founder Scott Harrison (@scottharrison), Twitter investor Chris Sacca (@sacca) and others to film and dedicate the first @twestival well drilled.

Figure 12.3. On the Social Media for Social Change Web site, you can see what events are coming up.

By being active on Twitter — practicing the philosophy of transparency and having genuine interactions — you can increase your circle of friends and connections both on- and offline. You can also merge your offline circle of friends with your online circle of friends in ways you never could before, increasing your social reach exponentially. We talk more about being genuine in Chapter 10.

As it turns out, the more solid connections you have with your Twitter following, the more your network works for you. Although you may find meeting people in airports for board games an advantage to having some Twitter credibility, you can use your online network as quite a resource beyond the fuzzy stuff (which we discuss in the section "Using Twitter as a Support System," earlier in this chapter). If you have a valuable network, you can get your followers to answer questions you can't find answers to anywhere else!

Everyone has their own methodology for whom they follow and how they follow people on Twitter. Some people tend to follow everyone they interact with, but others judiciously control their following counts. Some people diligently review who they follow and trim out users who are no longer relevant to their lives, and others never look through their Following list.

There is no single "right" way to go about deciding who to follow; other twitterers may use the Following tool differently than you — just because they don't immediately follow you back doesn't mean they're not going to in the future. Our rule is simple: Follow someone if you have a reason to follow him, not just because he's following you. (If you're on Twitter for business purposes, we have different advice for you in Chapter 11.)

Every user has a different ritual when she gets a new follower: Some people @reply their new followers to acknowledge the follow; some direct-message their new followers to say hello; and others do nothing at all. Twitter doesn't have an official protocol about what you're supposed to do, and you naturally gravitate towards a routine that works for you.

Some people and businesses choose to make first contact with their new followers by sending a direct message. You can write a very personalized direct message to say hello, thank the recipient for the follow, and mention why he might want to keep in touch. Some users enjoy receiving such direct-message greetings, but others might view a direct message as intrusive or antisocial. There's no hard and fast rule, and it's not always possible to tell which approach your new follower prefers, so play things by ear and develop your own personal style of what you are comfortable with.

If you decide to use that kind of technology, be forewarned that many users hate these automatic DMs. That sort of outreach can be antisocial and irritating; and, if the person doesn't like receiving direct messages from new people that she follows, sending her a DM can be insulting. So, use these technologies with caution.

As a side note, some Twitter users have rallied around the hashtag #endautodm in solidarity against auto-direct messages. Search for the endautodm hashtag on Twitter Search to get a sense of how unpopular auto-direct messages can be. (We cover hashtags and Twitter Search in Chapter 9.)

If you're on the fence about what to do to acknowledge someone who follows you, make first contact openly to keep with the transparent and welcoming nature of Twitter. Direct messages are meant for private conversations, which usually happen only after you spend time to get to know someone, both in person and on Twitter.

Have you ever had a seemingly simple question that has bothered you for days and days? Well, why not ask Twitter?

If you have a solid network of Twitter friends, someone can likely answer your question. People tend to know a variety of things, or have unknown talents and knowledge bases, so go ahead and ask! You might be surprised by the answers you get.

In fact, someone probably knows what you're looking for or is having a similar conversation somewhere, whether locally or on the other side of the world. For example, if you're awake at 5 a.m. in California trying (vainly) to remember the name of the fifth Beatle so that you can stop obsessing and go back to sleep already, someone who knows the answer is probably awake on the East Coast or not yet asleep in Europe. Hop on Twitter and ask!

(The Fifth Beatle's name is Stuart Sutcliffe, according to some; you can read more about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifth_Beatle. So, go to bed already!)

In addition, some brands and companies are beginning to use Twitter as a customer-service tool, and are willing and ready to answer customer queries. For example, JetBlue, shown in Figure 12-4, uses Twitter to send customers information on flight delays. (In Chapter 11, we explain how businesses can use Twitter to their advantage to help, educate, and communicate with customers.)

Accessing the experts

By using Twitter, you can find quick, knowledgeable answers to more serious questions, not just to simple ones. If you're doing some research for work and want to find the most useful sources, ask Twitter. Of course, you still have to do additional normal research and fact-checking, but you can definitely get pointers in the right direction much faster than you can on your own.

Figure 12.4. JetBlue notifies customers of weather delays and where to go for flight-delay information through Twitter.

While Twitter grows in popularity, more professionals, celebrities, and point people at companies are actively using the service to further their own publicity, knowledge, and outreach. For example, if you want to get a better sense of what it's like to be an Australian actor working in America, ask Hugh Jackman (@RealHughJackman). Want to know what Yoko Ono thought about when she was writing one of her pieces? Go ahead and ask her! (@yokoono). Despite their celebrity, they have the exact same tools that you do and are as accessible as they want to be on Twitter. If they have the time and see your question, you just might get an answer. But again, respect their time by asking something relevant and interesting to them, not just something selfish or easily looked up elsewhere.

Tip

As you can probably imagine, many celebrities and industry mavens have many, many followers — and those popular folks are often inundated with questions and @replies. If you ask something of them and don't get a response, your question may have just gotten lost in the noise. Feel free to try to talk to them in the future, but if you're sending them public messages in your timeline, remember that everyone else reading your updates gets all those messages, too. In short, don't be a rabid fan.

You'll also find many industry analysts, number crunchers, stats hounds, and fact checkers on Twitter who aren't famous but are eager to help you. So, with your Twitter account comes an army of experts and pundits who have research-heavy charts, graphs, and reports on a wide array of topics. People on Twitter can be very generous with their time, knowledge, and information. After all, many of the relationships you have on Twitter are with people whom you trust and who trust you.

Note

Twitter is a trust-based network. In the process of building connections, interacting with the community, and sharing your ideas and knowledge, you earn trust. That trust-building goes both ways. Your growing network of contacts on Twitter also earns your trust. So, if someone in your trusted network sends you a link, you can probably trust that the link will take you to a page that's helpful to you. Always check your facts, but you can get valuable, reliable, and accessible information through Twitter.

One of the things that new users notice quickly on Twitter is the abundance of shared information. You'll find that people share everything — from recipes to complex PowerPoint presentation files or slide decks — seemingly without a second thought.

Sometimes, people question the motives of those sharing or worry that the people who see and use the information might somehow steal it. Addressing that concern requires a fundamental psychological shift in thinking: Part of the success of Twitter is the concept of giving up some control over the information you release to your network. To quote an old adage, "Sharing means caring." Sharing with your network increases the value that you have to that network and allows your network to grow. It also shows that you care enough about the people in your network to share what you know, what you're doing, or what you're thinking about.

Giving up control might sound a little scary, but it doesn't have to be. You've built (or are building) a network of Twitter users whom you can trust. You can control who you interact with on Twitter and what kind of network you find value in cultivating. Whom you share with can be just as important as what you're sharing.

Another way many Twitter users share information is by linking to other Web sites, blogs, and Internet resources. We cover linking in Chapter 9, including how to go about linking to other sites, ways you can reduce your character count so that you can maximize the information and commentary you can include, and linking etiquette.