Purple People Vote

Twitter has been in the spotlight for its role in post-election Iran. It has allowed people within the country to communicate with each other and helped those protesting spread their story around the world. As Iran’s brutal government crackdowns continue, the flow of information has slowed considerably for multiple reasons. Yet Twitter has added to its list of uses, a tool of protest and possibly of revolution.

While Twitter grows at a remarkable rate there are still some holdouts. So here’s a guide to how and why using Twitter can be used particularly if one is interested in blogging and/or politics.

1. It helps people find others with similar interest, and quickly relays information to them.

2. Used right it can be an excellent source of information. Follow interesting people and organization and the your page will be filled with interesting information (tweets) daily.

3. It aids in drawing attention to your site, blog, or event.

Here are a few basic steps…

Sign up at Twitter / Write a descriptive, interesting Bio / Pick or create a background / Upload an avatar.

Start tweeting - regularly post updates on what you are doing, what you find interesting, and post useful information you would like to share. All information is public (unless otherwise designated) so tweet appropriately.

Learn the Lingo - There are a handful of ‘terms’ that will help you communicate and spread your message. The most basic of which are listed below.

RT - Retweet. This is done when re-posting information from another user. This helps others get their message out, it shows what you think is important, and it spreads useful information. Re-tweeting is a significant part of what makes Twitter a community, and not just a bunch of singular data feeds.

@ - Use the at sign to address a tweet to a particular person. For instance if you want to ask me a question about this article, your tweet would look something like this, “@kmorrison Why are you trying to get me to use Twitter?”  Tweets addressed to you in this manner can be found via a link on your main page  ‘@yourusername’ . @ is also used to refer to another used on twitter, and is included in RT’s to let people know where a tweet originated.

Search out people to follow - Use Twitter’s ‘Find People,’ or use other sites that search bio’s, tweets, or indexes users (like Twellow) to help you find those with similar interests.

Follow topics of interest - There in the menu of Twitter showing ‘Trending Topic.’ This is what people are tweeting about the most at this very moment. Click on these if the topic if of interest to you, and if you tweet on this topic others following this topic will also see your tweets. Use search to find topics of interest. Hit refresh when you want to see the newly posted tweets.

Hash Tags are a popular way on Twitter to follow particular topics as well. These are keywords preceded by #. For instance #IranElection has been the keyword / hashtag that has condensed tweets into a continuous flow of information on Iran over the last several weeks. There are groups and sites that use hashtags to publish topical tweets to their sites, and they are frequently used to organize the information coming through Twitter by topic. Check out HashTags.org for more information.

People use Twitter for different uses and have different styles of tweeting. It is a source of both news and gossip, so like anything on the internet a critical eye is needed when looking for good info. I highly recommend taking a look at  #IranElection to see what is currently being discussed. Also, retweeting cited information (be careful to only retweet accurate info) is a good way of keeping the spotlight on Iran at least on Twitter. Also, many news organizations and news personalities are on Twitter so dropping them a note that about their coverage (or lack there of) can’t hurt.

The more you use Twitter it becomes clearer and clearer how this tool can be used effectively for a variety of uses. Give it a try. If you’d like you can start by following my tweets @kmorrison - I almost always follow back.