How to use Twitter to make friends and influence people

If you're wondering what the big deal is for Twitter, well, it's difficult to explain in words the speed and fluidity that it makes possible. One thing is, in the same way that new media forced the old to fact check stories instead of just printing whatever some shill tells them, this instant media has begun forcing honesty in narrative on the media elite faster than the usual lying suspects can cook up some spin.

Case in point: Joe Barton's apology to BP. Literally before the GOP leadership and the conservative media fully realized what Barton had said, much less had time to think about the consequences, Barton's comments and the GOBP idea had already ripped through twitter like wildfire and the narrative was set. The Republican establishment, their clumsy Fox News and talk radio dinosaurs rendered useless, panicked and ran for the exits. In the same way, Twitter helped usher Sue Lowden's chickens and Mark Kirk's fake war stories past the conservative dominated media filters and into the national dialogue uncensored. Oh, and its also the fastest way to be ignored by celebrities:

Twitter has been lumped in with social media, but that's debatable. Tweeting master and business technology guru Simon Salt of Austin, Texas, who has a virtual Ph.D in instant media, explains:

Twitter is Not Social Media -- As popular as Twitter is, it still only has a 5% penetration, being on Twitter, even if you do it well is not a Social Media Strategy. Twitter is at best a small part of an overarching strategy that includes not only the tool set, comprising tools like Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, YouTube etc ...

Simply put,Twitter and its applications form a scalable media tool that integrates and distills blogging, chatting, instant messaging, email, and social media like Facebook into a single, manageable platform. If you're well on your way, here's 50 Power Tweeting Tips. But if you're Twit curious and ready to take the plunge, or newly signed up and as confused as I was a few weeks ago, here's some directions. 

Step 1: Create a screen name and password at Twitter here. You can create as many screen names as you want, so it's not necessary to think up a great one right now. Just do it, there's no cost or software download involved. Once you've created a screen name and signed in, the homepage will display as below and you're ready to send your first tweet. I'm at SAndrewDKos on Twitter if you want to send me a message and see if it's working.

The center field marked "What are you doing" is where you enter text. The limit is 140 alphanumeric characters. The column below that is where tweets from those you follow appear.

Step 2: Forget about that format and download Tweetdeck here. I've done this on several PCs and had no problems. Tweetdeck will transform the format above into the one below (Grabbed from Techcrunch). It may look a little busy, but it's the same thing. Tweetdeck just displays more columns simultaneously, will shorten urls automatically, and allows you to integrate other social media like Facebook or Myspace onto the same screen. 

Those columns can be deleted, created, or moved around at will. The whole thing can be truncated to show only the main column where anything you say will appear to you and your followers, and anyone you follow will appear to you. In case you're on another window or a few feet away, a little IM-like field will appear in one corner of your screen and then fade away after a few seconds.

Step 3: Use Twitter hashtags! That's a number sign, like this #, followed by letters that identify specific discussions. If you write "BP Sucks" and add #BP or #OilSpill before sending, it will insert that tweet into discussions marked with that tag regardless if those people are following you or not. This puts your tweets in front of dozens to thousands of people; it's kind of like jumping into a specific chat room everytime you use a hashtag. You can click on someone elses hashtag and it will generate a column showing everyone's tweets with that same tag. Get it? Hashtags are key. Spend some time exploring topics you're interested in, and not only will you find great people to follow and be followed by, it'll happen about ten times faster than it would without the tags.

There's a lot more to learn. Outside of politics, the marketing prospects are promising. And in addition to those basics, there are applications for phones and other portable devices, a special image app, and rumors of all sorts of new stuff in the works like specialized video. And looking way ahead through the lens of science-fiction, I think what's neatest of all is twitter gives us some crude insight into how multiple streams of data might be presented and managed in the future world world of cyberscapes, borg, and artilects that's rushing faster and faster into the present.