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	<title>Deanna Zandt &#187; TechGrrl Tips</title>
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	<link>http://www.deannazandt.com</link>
	<description>Media technologist and author in Brooklyn, NY.</description>
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		<title>A slightly modified Golden Rule: How to treat others on social networks</title>
		<link>http://www.deannazandt.com/2011/03/04/a-slightly-modified-golden-rule-how-to-treat-others-on-social-networks/</link>
		<comments>http://www.deannazandt.com/2011/03/04/a-slightly-modified-golden-rule-how-to-treat-others-on-social-networks/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 04 Mar 2011 20:04:04 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>deanna zandt</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Tech]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[TechGrrl Tips]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[etiquette]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[facebook]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[guide]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[how-to]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[netiquette]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.deannazandt.com/?p=41244</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[There&#8217;s a lot of talk about being able to manage our privacy and boundaries on various online social networks, but one thing that&#8217;s in part missing from the conversation is reminders to ourselves and others that there should be guidelines on how you treat other people. I feel like there&#8217;s this notion out there that [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>There&#8217;s a lot of talk about being able to manage our privacy and boundaries on various online social networks, but one thing that&#8217;s in part missing from the conversation is reminders to ourselves and others that there should be guidelines on how you treat other people. I feel like there&#8217;s this notion out there that we are each an island at the mercy of whatever mercurial whims our friends, colleagues, and family throw our way. But what if we started thinking about &#8220;do unto others&#8221; &#8211;not just as we would have done to ourselves, either&#8211;as we also cavort about online?</p>
<p>In that spirit, here&#8217;s some simple advice about how to treat others with respect and still have fun online. The number one rule? <strong>Ask first. </strong></p>
<p>Mind-blowing concept, I know! But with the ease with which we can refer to and tag each other on different services, we forget that sometimes people don&#8217;t want to be referred to or tagged. Just because someone has a public profile, doesn&#8217;t mean they want to be quoted at every juncture! Here are some standard questions I use:</p>
<ul>
<li>Can I post what you just said to Twitter and Facebook? Should I credit you, or should it be anonymous/overheard?</li>
<li>I took a great picture of us&#8211;check it out. Can I post it and tag you with it?</li>
<li>I&#8217;m checking into Foursquare for this restaurant. Can I say that I&#8217;m having dinner with you?</li>
</ul>
<p>Not only does this tell your friend that you actually care about their privacy (most people like that), but it also helps spread the reminder that they should do the same for you and others.</p>
<p>The more you do it, the more comfortable it&#8217;ll be for both you and your friends. Now, onward with your sharing!</p>
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		<title>Walkthrough: How to sign up for Twitter</title>
		<link>http://www.deannazandt.com/2011/01/31/walkthrough-how-to-sign-up-for-twitter/</link>
		<comments>http://www.deannazandt.com/2011/01/31/walkthrough-how-to-sign-up-for-twitter/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 01 Feb 2011 02:54:28 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>deanna zandt</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Share This!]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Tech]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[TechGrrl Tips]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[how-to]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[social media]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[twitter]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.deannazandt.com/?p=40282</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[(Note: I&#8217;d written this for a client as a handout, and finally turned it in a post that&#8217;s a little easier to share. If you&#8217;d like to download the PDF to print, it&#8217;s right here.) So, you&#8217;re ready to sign up for Twitter! Sometimes the signup process can be a bit daunting, so I created [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><em>(Note: I&#8217;d written this for a client as a handout, and finally turned it in a post that&#8217;s a little easier to share. If you&#8217;d like to download the PDF to print, <a href="http://www.deannazandt.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/Signing-up-for-Twitter.pdf">it&#8217;s right here</a>.)</em></p>
<p>So, you&#8217;re ready to sign up for Twitter! Sometimes the signup process can be a bit daunting, so I created this short guide showing you what you need to know. Let&#8217;s get started!<span id="more-40282"></span></p>
<p>Go to <a href="http://twitter.com/">http://twitter.com/</a>, and you should see a screen like this. Click the yellow &#8220;Give it a try&#8221; button on the right.</p>
<p><img class="alignnone size-large wp-image-40283" title="Twitter home page" src="http://www.deannazandt.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/image001-620x374.jpg" alt="" width="620" height="374" /></p>
<p><strong>STEP 1: Create your account</strong></p>
<p>You&#8217;ll be taken to a screen where you&#8217;re asked to fill out your information. Fill in your real name, your username (what you&#8217;ll use to log in, and how other Twitter users will refer to you), a password, and your email address. Along the way, Twitter will tell you if each of your entries is valid or not.</p>
<p>There&#8217;s also a checkbox that reads &#8220;Let others find me by my email address.&#8221; This means that if someone already knows your email address, they can use it to find and follow you. Twitter never reveals your email address to anyone who doesn&#8217;t already have it, though.</p>
<p>I generally uncheck the &#8220;send me email updates&#8221; box, and then click &#8220;Create my account.&#8221;</p>
<p><img class="alignnone size-large wp-image-40284" title="Twitter signup" src="http://www.deannazandt.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/image003-598x500.jpg" alt="" width="598" height="500" /></p>
<p>Then Twitter needs to make sure that you&#8217;re a human. You&#8217;ll see a CAPTCHA box; type in the words that you see. Here&#8217;s an example:</p>
<p><img class="alignnone size-large wp-image-40285" title="Twitter captcha" src="http://www.deannazandt.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/image005-620x250.jpg" alt="" width="620" height="250" /></p>
<p><strong>STEP 2: FINDING YOUR PEOPLE</strong></p>
<p>Twitter helps you find people that you think are interestingâ€”either because you like the topic that they tweet about most often, or because you know them.</p>
<p><img class="alignnone size-large wp-image-40286" title="Twitter - Friends" src="http://www.deannazandt.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/image007-620x374.jpg" alt="" width="620" height="374" /></p>
<p>You&#8217;re first shown a screen where you are offered a series of topics, and if you click on the topic, it&#8217;ll show you people Twitter suggests for that topic. Click the &#8220;follow&#8221; button to the right to start following them.</p>
<p><img class="alignnone size-large wp-image-40287" title="Twitter - Friends" src="http://www.deannazandt.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/image009-620x279.jpg" alt="" width="620" height="279" /></p>
<p>Note that <em>you don&#8217;t have to follow</em> any of these people, and you can choose to stop following them at any time.</p>
<p>Click the blue &#8220;Next step: friends&#8221; button in the lower middle of the screen to move on. You&#8217;ll be taken to a screen asking you if you want to search any of your online contacts from Gmail, Yahoo or AOL. If you have an account with any of those services, and you use the address book there to store information, click on the service you belong to. (If not, click the blue &#8220;Skip import&#8221; button in the bottom middle.)</p>
<p><img class="alignnone size-large wp-image-40288" title="image011" src="http://www.deannazandt.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/image011-620x374.jpg" alt="" width="620" height="374" /></p>
<p>You&#8217;ll then follow the steps your email provider uses to connect with Twitterâ€”I&#8217;m showing Gmail here. Twitter doesn&#8217;t store or save this information; it&#8217;s a one-time deal.</p>
<p><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-40289" title="image013" src="http://www.deannazandt.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/image013-200x230.jpg" alt="" width="200" height="230" /> <img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-40290" title="image015" src="http://www.deannazandt.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/image015-200x230.jpg" alt="" width="200" height="230" /></p>
<p>It then takes a few seconds for your contacts to load, and you&#8217;re shown a screen that it&#8217;s working on it. When it&#8217;s done, it shows you a list of everyone in your address book <em>that are already on Twitter</em>.</p>
<p><img class="alignnone size-large wp-image-40291" title="image017" src="http://www.deannazandt.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/image017-620x374.jpg" alt="" width="620" height="374" /></p>
<p>You can click on &#8220;follow&#8221; next to the people that you want to appear in your feed. If they haven&#8217;t allowed themselves to be found via email, you&#8217;ll see a message that says so, and you can request to follow them. You&#8217;ll be notified if the request was approved.</p>
<p>When you&#8217;re all done, click the blue &#8220;Finish&#8221; button in the lower right. You&#8217;ll then be asked to send an invite to all the other people in your contact list who aren&#8217;t on Twitter. Skip this! Don&#8217;t do it.</p>
<p>You&#8217;re now shown your home screen, with all of the tweets from the people you&#8217;ve chosen to follow in reverse chronological order (newest on top). You&#8217;re also asked to confirm your email address; do this right away to get rid of that nagging message.</p>
<p><strong>STEP 3: FAMILIARIZING YOURSELF WITH TWITTER&#8217;S FEATURES</strong></p>
<p>Let&#8217;s take a quick tour of the home screen.</p>
<p><img class="alignnone size-large wp-image-40292" title="image019" src="http://www.deannazandt.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/image019-620x374.jpg" alt="" width="620" height="374" /></p>
<ol>
<li>This is the main navigation for Twitter.
<ul>
<li><em>Home:</em>brings you back to this screen</li>
<li><em>Profile:</em> shows you a screen of your own tweets</li>
<li><em>Messages:</em> Private messages sent only to you; also called Direct Messages or DMs. Only people that you follow are allowed to send you DMs.</li>
<li><em>Who To Follow:</em> brings you to the stuff we covered in Step 2</li>
<li>Click on your username for additional items: <em>Settings, Help, Sign out</em></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Here&#8217;s where you&#8217;ll enter your status update, in 140 characters or less. There&#8217;s a counter in the upper right of the box to tell you how many characters you have left.</li>
<li>This area shows you information about yourself. Click on any of the numbers next to followers, following, favorites and lists for detailed information about each.</li>
<li>Here&#8217;s your list of tweets from the people you&#8217;re following. This is called the Timeline. (Some people also refer to this as their Feed.)</li>
<li>This section is where you can look at how you&#8217;re interacting with the rest of the world.
<ul>
<li><em>@Mentions.</em> Click here to see if people have mentioned you.</li>
<li><em>Retweets.</em> Click here to see tweets that have been passed along by others in your timeline. You can also see which of your tweets have been retweeted by others.</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ol>
<p><strong>STEP 4: ADJUSTING YOUR SETTINGS</strong></p>
<p>Click on the Settings link in the main navigation. The first screen you&#8217;re taken to has things like your email address and time zone; adjust these if needed. Click on the &#8220;Profile&#8221; link in the Settings&#8217; navigation, just below where it says, &#8220;yourusername&#8217;s settings.&#8221;</p>
<p>You&#8217;re taken to a screen where you can update how you appear to other Twitter users.</p>
<p><img class="alignnone size-large wp-image-40293" title="image021" src="http://www.deannazandt.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/image021-620x493.jpg" alt="" width="620" height="493" /></p>
<p>It&#8217;s important to fill these out as accurately (and un-ironically/un-sarcastically) as you feel comfortable with, so that other users who are either searching for you or who discover you will see quickly who you are, and what you&#8217;re about. You should also use a picture that&#8217;s you, a close approximation of you, or is otherwise distinctly recognizable as you. (I don&#8217;t recommend those avatar generators, for example; they produce generic looking cartoons that make it hard for people to distinguish one from the other.)</p>
<p>Let&#8217;s go back to the Home screen and have a look at two important conversation features.</p>
<p><strong>STEP 5: LOOK WHO&#8217;S TALKING (WITH YOU)</strong></p>
<p>At the top of the timeline, click the @Mentions link (in section 5 from step 3). This shows you a screen of everyone who&#8217;s mentioned your username, with the newest on top. It&#8217;s important to check these &#8220;mentions&#8221; regularly and respond accordingly. If you hover over any tweet, two links appear: &#8220;reply,&#8221; and &#8220;retweet.&#8221;</p>
<p><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-40294" title="image023" src="http://www.deannazandt.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/image023.jpg" alt="" width="545" height="94" /></p>
<p>Click on &#8220;reply&#8221; to respond to the person; click on &#8220;Retweet&#8221; to share the content of that tweet with whomever is following you.</p>
<p><strong>STEP 6: SEARCHING AND SAVING</strong></p>
<p>If there&#8217;s a particular topic you&#8217;re interested in, Twitter allows you to search for that word (or words), and save the searches to your account. This is a good way to monitor tweets mentioning your organization&#8217;s name, topics in the kind of work that you do, or other things that interest you.</p>
<p>Way up top, there&#8217;s a grey box with a magnifying glass next to it. Enter the term you&#8217;re searching for, and click the magnifying glass. You&#8217;ll be given a screen of search results:</p>
<p><img class="alignnone size-large wp-image-40295" title="image025" src="http://www.deannazandt.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/image025-620x374.jpg" alt="" width="620" height="374" /></p>
<p>You can then save the search to your account, so you don&#8217;t have to keep reentering it every time you want to look, by clicking the &#8220;Save this search&#8221; button at the top of the search results. Then, to find it again, look at the top of your Timeline for the &#8220;Searches&#8221; link. Click on it, and you&#8217;ll be shown a list of your saved searches.</p>
<p><img class="alignnone size-large wp-image-40296" title="image027" src="http://www.deannazandt.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/image027-620x282.jpg" alt="" width="620" height="282" /></p>
<p>That&#8217;s pretty much it for the basics! Feel free to visit me at <a href="http://deannazandt.com/twitter-guides">http://deannazandt.com/twitter-guides</a> for more information.</p>
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		<title>Quick hit: Twitter tracking tools and setup</title>
		<link>http://www.deannazandt.com/2011/01/24/quick-hit-twitter-tracking-tools-and-setup/</link>
		<comments>http://www.deannazandt.com/2011/01/24/quick-hit-twitter-tracking-tools-and-setup/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 24 Jan 2011 17:59:57 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>deanna zandt</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Tech]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[TechGrrl Tips]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[how-to]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[reputation management]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[social networking]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[technology]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[twitter]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.deannazandt.com/?p=39821</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Last night, my friend Nancy Goldstein asked me for some help* in tracking clicks and references in Twitter&#8230; and I thought, as I was laying out for her what I do, &#8220;man, this would be a good blog post.&#8221; Before we begin, though, let&#8217;s all repeat the first rule of Twitter: it&#8217;s not about you. [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Last night, my friend <a href="https://twitter.com/#!/nancygoldstein">Nancy Goldstein</a> asked me for some help* in tracking clicks and references in Twitter&#8230; and I thought, as I was laying out for her what I do, &#8220;man, this would be a good blog post.&#8221; Before we begin, though, let&#8217;s all repeat the first rule of Twitter: <strong>it&#8217;s not about you. It&#8217;s about the conversation.</strong> Being obsessive about ego-checking can breed an addictive, greedy ego-monster (not that I know from experience), so it&#8217;s important to remember why you&#8217;re doing this set up&#8211;not just so you can see people referring you, but also so you can monitor what&#8217;s happening in conversations that refer to things you care about.</p>
<p>Here are the tips I shared with Nancy:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://backtweets.com/">Backtweets</a>. Enter any URL and see who&#8217;s tweeted it, no matter what URL shortener they used. Especially handy if you don&#8217;t have access to analytics of a particular site. (RSS feed of results available)</li>
<li><a href="http://favstar.fm">Favstar</a>. See who has favorited your tweets, and also new-style RT&#8217;ed your tweets. (RSS feed of results available&#8211; handy for seeing a old tweet that was recently favorited).</li>
<li><a href="http://search.twitter.com/">Advanced Twitter search</a>. The search function at the top of Twitter home page doesn&#8217;t seem to have all of the results when referencing users. Go to <a href="http://search.twitter.com/">http://search.twitter.com/</a> and enter your username preceded by the @ symbol (i.e., @randomdeanna) and hit enter. You should see results of when someone else new-style RT&#8217;s something with your username in it. (RSS feed of results available)</li>
<li><a href="http://search.twitter.com/">Other Twitter search</a>es. I also have saved searches for <em>deannazandt</em>, which brings up both mistaken username mentions (people sometimes forget I&#8217;m <a href="https://twitter.com/#!/randomdeanna">@randomdeanna</a>), as well links to my website, deannazandt.com. Plus a saved search for &#8220;Deanna Zandt,&#8221; when people read something I&#8217;ve written, but don&#8217;t know my twitter handle.</li>
</ul>
<p>Got (free, easy) tips of your own? Feel free to share them in the comments!</p>
<p>(*UPDATE: Nancy reminded me to share with you that she is &#8220;the most selfless, confident, least ego-driven person you&#8217;ve ever met  and would NEVER dream of checking my RT thread to reassure myself that  people like me or are actually reading my work :)&#8221; OMG NANCY ME TOO)</p>
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		<title>TechGrrl Tips: #IranElection roundtable on old media vs. social media on GritTV</title>
		<link>http://www.deannazandt.com/2009/06/25/techgrrl-tips-iranelection-roundtable-on-old-media-vs-social-media-on-grittv/</link>
		<comments>http://www.deannazandt.com/2009/06/25/techgrrl-tips-iranelection-roundtable-on-old-media-vs-social-media-on-grittv/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 25 Jun 2009 12:11:42 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>deanna zandt</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Friends]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Politics]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[iran]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[iranelection]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.deannazandt.com/?p=634</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I was thrilled to participate in this roundtable on the media reportage vis a vis Iran&#8217;s election on GritTV, featuring the fabulous independent filmmaker and educator Simin Farkondeh (who everyone should interview, btw), John MacArthur of Harper&#8217;s, and Robert Huesca, a professor of communications at Trinity University. I&#8217;ve got more thoughts on the subject (if [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>I was thrilled to <a href="http://grittv.blip.tv/file/2281734/">participate in this roundtable</a> on the media reportage vis a vis Iran&#8217;s election on <a href="http://grittv.org/">GritTV</a>, featuring the fabulous independent filmmaker and educator Simin Farkondeh (who everyone should interview, btw), John MacArthur of Harper&#8217;s, and Robert Huesca, a professor of communications at Trinity University.</p>
<p>I&#8217;ve got more thoughts on the subject (if ya couldn&#8217;t tell by the look on my face at different points in the clip) that <del datetime="2009-06-25T19:48:23+00:00">I hope to round up later this morning</del> <a href="http://www.deannazandt.com/2009/06/25/foreign-correspondents-authority-social-media-and-more/">I wrote up here</a>&#8230;</p>
<p><object classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" width="500" height="375" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0"><param name="src" value="http://blip.tv/play/gdElgYyJY4yWCw" /><param name="allowfullscreen" value="true" /><embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="500" height="375" src="http://blip.tv/play/gdElgYyJY4yWCw" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object></p>
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		<title>TechGrrl Tips: #IranElection on GRITtv</title>
		<link>http://www.deannazandt.com/2009/06/17/techgrrl-tips-iranelection-on-grittv/</link>
		<comments>http://www.deannazandt.com/2009/06/17/techgrrl-tips-iranelection-on-grittv/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 17 Jun 2009 13:03:11 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>deanna zandt</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Media]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[protest]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[revolution]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[social change]]></category>
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		<title>Why Twitter, anyways?</title>
		<link>http://www.deannazandt.com/2009/03/02/why-twitter-anyways/</link>
		<comments>http://www.deannazandt.com/2009/03/02/why-twitter-anyways/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 02 Mar 2009 17:40:13 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>deanna zandt</dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[<em>(This is part 2 of a chicken-'n'-egg series explaining the usefulness of Twitter. If you get what Twitter is, but need help getting started, you might want to look at "<a href="http://www.deannazandt.com/2009/02/26/a-non-fanatical-beginners-guide-to-twitter/">A non-fanatical beginner's guide to Twitter.</a>")</em>

I'm tapping away furiously on my Blackberry as a friend arrives to join me for coffee. "Whatcha working on?" he asks.

"Just updating my Twitter," I say. "Two secs."

"Twitter, huh? I just don't <em>get it</em>, I guess."

"Oh, my. Allow me to get you to 'get' it, my friend."

This is a conversation I have often, and while it might make some diehard Twitterers cringe, I relish this moment to expound and explain this little phenomenon that's happening around Twitter and services like it. I've clearly drunk the Kool-Aid of the micro-blogging revolution, and I'd love to walk you through some of the ways people are enjoying it.]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><em>(This is part 2 of a chicken-&#8217;n'-egg series explaining the usefulness of Twitter. If you get what Twitter is, but need help getting started, you might want to look at &#8220;<a href="http://www.deannazandt.com/2009/02/26/a-non-fanatical-beginners-guide-to-twitter/">A non-fanatical beginner&#8217;s guide to Twitter.</a>&#8220;)</em></p>
<p>I&#8217;m tapping away furiously on my Blackberry as a friend arrives to join me for coffee. &#8220;Whatcha working on?&#8221; he asks.</p>
<p>&#8220;Just updating my Twitter,&#8221; I say. &#8220;Two secs.&#8221;</p>
<p>&#8220;Twitter, huh? I just don&#8217;t <em>get it</em>, I guess.&#8221;</p>
<p>&#8220;Oh, my. Allow me to get you to &#8216;get&#8217; it, my friend.&#8221;</p>
<p>This is a conversation I have often, and while it might make some diehard Twitterers cringe, I relish this moment to expound and explain this little phenomenon that&#8217;s happening around Twitter and services like it. I&#8217;ve clearly drunk the Kool-Aid of the micro-blogging revolution, and I&#8217;d love to walk you through some of the ways people are enjoying it.</p>
<h3>Wait, what is it?</h3>
<p><a href="http://twitter.com/">Twitter</a> is a service that functions like a giant bulletin board where anyone can stick a short note &#8212; 140 characters or less. These posts are called &#8220;tweets.&#8221; You can choose to read other people&#8217;s tweets (called &#8220;following&#8221; them), and other people can choose to read yours (these are your &#8220;followers&#8221;). Some people choose to keep their tweets private, and approve each request to be &#8220;followed.&#8221;</p>
<p>The most basic way to use Twitter is via the <a href="http://twitter.com/">website</a>, where a list of everyone&#8217;s tweets appears once you log in.  If you belong to Facebook, it&#8217;s similar to the home screen there (aka, the &#8220;news feed&#8221;)&#8211; which features a list of your friends&#8217; recent activities. The main difference between the two services is that while all your friends&#8217; activities appear in your news feed (though this is tweakable; another post on that another day), only people you choose to follow appear in your Twitter feed.</p>
<h3>How do people use it?</h3>
<p>There are two main groups of twitterers, and I want to address them separately &#8212; individuals tweeting on their own behalf, and organizations and business who are on Twitter. There&#8217;s some overlap, for sure, but have their own ends for which Twitter is the means.</p>
<h3>Individuals: I am tweeting, hear me roar</h3>
<p>Or purr, if that&#8217;s the case. Many people are on Twitter for some pretty basic reasons:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Conversations</strong>. Twitter, as I <a href="http://www.deannazandt.com/2009/02/26/a-non-fanatical-beginners-guide-to-twitter/">mentioned in my beginner&#8217;s guide</a>, is a two-way street with many lanes going in both directions. Everyone has the opportunity not just to express what they&#8217;re thinking/feeling/doing at any given moment, but to <em>respond</em> to what others are thinking/feeling/doing. I like to think of it as a water cooler in the break room, where I stop in periodically and see what people are talking about. This is especially helpful for freelancers, web workers and other folks who aren&#8217;t in traditional work environments. It gives us support and creates community.</li>
<li><strong>Expertise</strong>. People love to get and share advice on Twitter. It&#8217;s a great place to receive quick, immediate feedback on an idea, put out a link to a new blog post or article, or advertise yourself as a leader in your field.</li>
<li><strong>News.</strong> Lots of media organizations now have Twitter accounts, and use them to automatically publish links to new stories as they become available. Many people find it convenient to get breaking news there &#8212; and to report it themselves.  More individuals are now using Twitter to provide eye-witness accounts and to point out what&#8217;s missing from the news coverage. Both the Hudson River landing and the Dutch crash were first reported by everyday people on Twitter.</li>
<li><strong>Stay connected with friends. </strong>Our so-called digital lives, yes indeed! Twitter is a great way to  peek at what your friends and colleagues are up to. This certainly doesn&#8217;t mean you have to be responsible for reading every tweet (see <a href="http://www.deannazandt.com/2009/01/26/twitter-overload/">my post on Twitter overload</a>), but it&#8217;s a great way to casually be aware of what&#8217;s happening with folks you care about.</li>
<li><strong>Share interests &amp; find others who share them.</strong> Are you a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_food">locavore</a>? Would you love to share that passion with other locavores? Twitter makes it easy to find and follow others&#8211; check out the <a href="http://search.twitter.com/">search function</a> and use &#8220;hash tags&#8221; (see <a href="http://www.deannazandt.com/2009/02/26/a-non-fanatical-beginners-guide-to-twitter/">the beginner&#8217;s guide</a> for the how-to) to track conversations and topics of interest.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Organizations: It&#8217;s so much more than outreach</h3>
<p>Sure, you can push out information all you want, but there are a lot of other ways for organizations to connect with their constiuencies:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Spread the word, connect the dots.</strong> There&#8217;s the obvious &#8212; post your own news and events &#8212; but there&#8217;s also huge value in giving your followers related info. If you&#8217;re an environmental organization, don&#8217;t just send out press releases from your own group. Use Twitter to link to articles relevant to your work, as well as share links to sister organizations.</li>
<li><strong>Have conversations with your community</strong>. Have I mentioned that Twitter is a two-way street? There&#8217;s a fantastic opportunity for organizations to listen as well as talk, on a very direct level. It&#8217;s a great tool for organizing as well as providing customer service.</li>
<li><strong>Give your work a human voice. </strong>Prior to tools like Facebook and Twitter, it was hard to make the work we all do at the organizational level feel personal and real. Take this opportunity to let your humanity shine through, and don&#8217;t sound like a robot when you&#8217;re tweeting for your org. Twitter is more about connecting humans to humans.</li>
</ul>
<h3>A little story</h3>
<p>This is one of my favorite, illustrative moments in for how Twitter humanizes our digital interactions: Last fall, I was visiting my parents after participating at a <a href="http://ithaca.edu/rhp/independentmedia/symposium/">media symposium at Ithaca College</a>. My mother knows I have a thing for shoes, so while we were shopping, she decided to mess with me. We were at a store with rows and rows of discounted awesomeness, and she called across several aisles, &#8220;Come look at these! Should I get them?&#8221;</p>
<p>I was greeted by a blinding set of cream-colored, bejeweled, pointy-toed, gold-stilletoed boots on my fashion-conservative mother. We fell over with laughter, and I sent this picture to Twitter with the question, &#8220;<a href="http://twitpic.com/bzt6">Should my mom buy these boots?</a>&#8221; (Best response came from @<a href="http://twitter.com/rit">rit</a>, who said, &#8220;That depends. Is your mother Dolly Parton?&#8221;)</p>
<p>A few days later, I was on the phone with <a href="http://www.nextagenda.org/">Pete Leyden</a> to discuss a potential project. We played phone tag for a few days while I was traveling, and I was excited to finally hear what the project was about. &#8220;Before I get into it, though,&#8221; Pete said, &#8220;I need to know: Did your mom buy the boots?&#8221;</p>
<p>It was one of those moments that allowed this entirely personal &#8212; but not necessarily intimate or vulnerable &#8212; connection between me and a potential client. We had a great laugh over it. Following me on Twitter gave him a fairly rounded picture of the type of person I am, and it let me know that he&#8217;s appreciative of the level of <a href="http://www.deannazandt.com/tags/humor/">silliness</a> that often invades my brain. It humanized each of us in what otherwise is a connection governed entirely by ones and zeros.</p>
<h3>What else to say?</h3>
<p>Attention, Twitterati: what else is there? Tell me why you Twitter in the comments. Two great resources that I&#8217;d like to share before we go:</p>
<ul>
<li>There&#8217;s <a href="http://www.commoncraft.com/Twitter">a great video from Common Craft</a> that explains Twitter in a jiff.</li>
<li>Tara Hunt has a <a href="http://www.horsepigcow.com/2008/04/21/tweeting-for-companies-101">great post on tweeting for companies</a>. It focuses on for-profits selling things, but I think much of it is applicable to non-profits, and maybe even individuals, as well.</li>
</ul>
<p><em>Later this week, I&#8217;ll  follow up with a post on the big picture of Twitter, and what it ultimately all means. See you then!</em></p>
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		<title>A non-fanatical beginner&#8217;s guide to Twitter</title>
		<link>http://www.deannazandt.com/2009/02/26/a-non-fanatical-beginners-guide-to-twitter/</link>
		<comments>http://www.deannazandt.com/2009/02/26/a-non-fanatical-beginners-guide-to-twitter/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 26 Feb 2009 18:57:25 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>deanna zandt</dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[Thanks to a bunch of mainstream media coverage, a lot of folks around me are becoming more interested in participating in the Twitterverse. "All right, all right," they say. "You've convinced me. But how do I get started?" It's almost like walking into a giant party for the first time: You're not sure where your friends are, the bar is on the other side of the room, and the bathrooms are anyone's guess. Allow me to be your party guide.

Sure, sure, you could also just Google "beginner's guide to Twitter" and read a any number of other guides that have been written. Problem is, I feel like most of them focus on two niches: how to be a fanatical Twitterer, and/or how to be a really obnoxiously popular Twitterer. What I'm aiming for here is more for people who want to experiment a little and connect with other folks on a pretty direct level. We'll talk later about different ways you can participate, but for now, let's just get the basics down.]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><em>(If you&#8217;re not sure what Twitter is, or why you should consider Twittering, check out &#8220;<a href="http://www.deannazandt.com/2009/03/02/why-twitter-anyways/">Why Twitter, anyways?</a>&#8220;)</em></p>
<p><em>Edited 1/3/2010 to include updates to Twitter interface over the past few months.<br />
Note 11/9/2010: This was written/edited/updated before <a href="http://twitter.com/newtwitter">Twitter&#8217;s redesign</a> in September 2010. I&#8217;m hoping to update certain bits in the coming months, but for now, know that some references to the interface might not make so much sense. Sorry!<br />
</em></p>
<p>Thanks to a bunch of mainstream media coverage, a lot of folks around me are becoming more interested in participating in the Twitterverse. &#8220;All right, all right,&#8221; they say. &#8220;You&#8217;ve convinced me. But how do I get <em>started</em>?&#8221; It&#8217;s almost like walking into a giant party for the first time: You&#8217;re not sure where your friends are, the bar is on the other side of the room, and the bathrooms are anyone&#8217;s guess. Allow me to be your party guide.</p>
<p>Sure, sure, you could also just Google &#8220;beginner&#8217;s guide to Twitter&#8221; and read a any number of other guides that have been written. Problem is, I feel like most of them focus on two niches: how to be a fanatical Twitterer, and/or how to be a really obnoxiously popular Twitterer. What I&#8217;m aiming for here is more for people who want to experiment a little and connect with other folks on a pretty direct level. We&#8217;ll talk later about different ways you can participate, but for now, let&#8217;s just get the basics down.</p>
<h3>Grammar and vocab</h3>
<p>First, it&#8217;s good if you can get some of the lingo down before jumping it. Pretend you&#8217;re visiting a foreign country where you don&#8217;t speak the language&#8211; there are always a few basic phrases you want to have in your back pocket.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Following.</strong> These are the people whose tweets you&#8217;ve selected to read; their tweets appear in your &#8220;feed&#8221; or &#8220;stream.&#8221;</li>
<li><strong>Follower.</strong> This is someone who is reading your tweets.</li>
<li><strong>The @ symbol. </strong>Put this before any other Twitterer&#8217;s username to refer to them. Why? It creates a link to their profile automatically, which is handy for your followers to track conversations or look at people you&#8217;re referring to. @Replies will likely show up in that person&#8217;s <a href="http://twitter.com/#replies">Mentions page</a>.<br />
Note that if you reply to another person using the Reply arrow button on Twitter, though, that only people who follow that person will also see that reply in your feed. It&#8217;s kind of a drag; <a href="http://mashable.com/2009/05/13/fixreplies/">more on this here</a>.</li>
<li><strong>Rt, RT or rtwt. </strong>These stand for &#8220;retweet.&#8221; If you read someone else&#8217;s tweet that you think people following you should also read, put this before copying and pasting the whole thing, including the original tweeter&#8217;s username. Here&#8217;s an example, where I retweeted something that Nancy Scola posted: <em>&#8220;</em><span class="status-body"><span class="entry-content"><em>rt @<a href="http://twitter.com/nancyscola">nancyscola</a>: isn&#8217;t there something uniquely DC about 1/5 of Politico&#8217;s &#8220;top 10&#8243; DC Twitterers not actually tweeting? <a rel="nofollow" href="http://ow.ly/qmy" target="_blank">http://ow.ly/qmy</a>&#8221;<br />
Update: </em>Also, you can use &#8220;<strong>via</strong> @username&#8221; to attribute something that you saw with another user, but aren&#8217;t directly quoting word for word. (thanks, </span></span>@<a href="http://twitter.com/nezua">nezua</a>!)<br />
<em>Update #2:</em> Twitter now has its own built in retweet function (the circular arrow button). Many people don&#8217;t use it, though, because those retweets don&#8217;t show up in Mentions, and it throws off their user&#8217;s own feeds by displaying the icons of strangers.</li>
<li><span class="status-body"><span class="entry-content"><strong>The # symbol. </strong>Words that follow # in Twitter are called &#8220;hash tags.&#8221; It&#8217;s a way of assigning a keyword to a tweet so that so that others can follow the topic. For example: When folks were attending the WeMedia conference this week, they would tweet information about the conference and put #wemedia somewhere in the tweet. That way, everyone else interested in news from the conference could easily find and track them.ï¿½ <a href="http://twitter.com/tracyvs">Tracy Van Slyke</a> of the <a href="http://www.themediaconsortium.org">Media Consortium</a> said this, for example: <em>&#8220;</em></span></span><span class="status-body"><span class="entry-content"><em>#wemedia.  Twitter wins game changing award!  @<a href="http://twitter.com/biz">biz</a> says best thing: twitter isn&#8217;t about triumph of tech, it&#8217;s about triumph of humanity.&#8221;</em> And you can see lots of other tweets from that conference <a href="http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%23wemedia">here</a>&#8211; by <a href="http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%23wemedia">searching for the hashtag</a>. If you see a hashtag in use and don&#8217;t know what it means, try checking out &#8220;<a href="http://wthashtag.com/Main_Page">What the Hashtag.</a>&#8220;</span></span></li>
<li><strong>URLs that look like <em>is.gd, tinyurl.com, bit.ly</em>, etc.</strong> These are URL shortening services that take very long links and squish them down to fewer characters. Why? Because on Twitter, you only have 140 characters to get your thought out, and this leaves more room for your words.</li>
<li><span class="status-body"><span class="entry-content"><strong>Direct messaging. </strong>This is a way of sending a message to someone so that only they can see it&#8211; like sending a txt message. The person has to be following you in order to receive messages from you, though! (No DMing <a href="http://twitter.com/janefonda">Jane Fonda</a> or <a href="http://twitter.com/NotHenryRollins">Henry Rollins</a> unless they&#8217;re following you, ya hear?) To do this, you can either go to the person&#8217;s twitter page (aka, their profile page), and click on the &#8220;message&#8221; link in the left sidebar. Or, if you&#8217;re using another device or application besides the Twitter website, you can type the letter <strong>d</strong>, the person&#8217;s username, and then your message. I.e., <em>&#8220;d randomdeanna let&#8217;s go to happy hour at abilene later&#8221;<br />
</em></span></span></li>
</ul>
<h3>Finding your people</h3>
<p>OK, you&#8217;ve got your phrasebook, now it&#8217;s time to wade in. Let&#8217;s start with the technical aspect of finding people to follow. Twitter makes this stunningly easy by providing a &#8220;Find people&#8221; link at the top of the website. Click on it, and you&#8217;re taken to a screen where you can select different ways to connect with other people you know. Click on &#8220;Find on other networks,&#8221; and then select your email provider and search for contacts already on Twitter. Twitter lets you choose who you want to follow from the list of people that it finds. It also recommends that you invite everyone else not on Twitter, but you can definitely skip that. (Please &#8212; it&#8217;s considered spam!)</p>
<p>What if you&#8217;re not on any of those email services? I actually don&#8217;t use my Gmail account for regular contact, so I exported my Mac&#8217;s Address Book (I used <a href="http://bborofka.com/A_to_G/A_to_G.html">A to G</a>), and then imported it into my contacts. You can do this with any of the providers listed; I&#8217;m pretty sure they&#8217;re all free. (I do find Gmail easiest to navigate, though.) Then you can come back to the Twitter screen and move along.</p>
<h3>Finding people who might be your people</h3>
<p>Consider looking for Twitter folk who you don&#8217;t already know, but who you might find interesting. The most effective way is often the organic way: Watch your friends&#8217; @ replies to other users you don&#8217;t know. Click on those names. Scan through their tweets. Find them interesting? Follow.</p>
<p>Additionally, you can also browse through self-maintained directories of Twitter users. I don&#8217;t use these too much myself, but I know for a while <a href="http://twitterpacks.pbwiki.com/">TwitterPacks</a> was pretty popular. If you have a favorite list or site, leave &#8216;em in the comments.</p>
<p>One last thing I want to mention is to pay attention to certain hashtags on certain days, particularly <a href="http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%23FollowFriday">#FollowFriday</a> (where every Friday, people tweet lists of their favorite Twitterers), and <span id="msgtxt1251428699" class="msgtxt en"><a href="http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%23Women2Follow">#Women2Follow</a> on Wednesdays &#8212; awesome women from all over, Twittering away.</span></p>
<h3><span class="msgtxt en">Getting people to find you</span></h3>
<p><span class="msgtxt en">&#8220;But how will others know if I&#8217;m on Twitter?&#8221;</span></p>
<p>Well, you might want to start by telling them. You could go old school and send an email to people you think might be interested, though not that many people do it. I added my Twitter page to my email signature as a subtle way of &#8220;announcing&#8221; it. Note that the people you choose to follow likely have their profiles set to get an email or other alert every time someone new follows them, so you don&#8217;t have to tell them. You can also post a note to your Facebook profile, if you have one, telling folks that you&#8217;re Twittering.</p>
<p><span class="msgtxt en"><em>Update</em>: Two other points made to me about making sure people can find you:</span></p>
<ul>
<li><span class="msgtxt en">It&#8217;s a good idea to use your real, full name in <a href="http://twitter.com/account/settings">your profile</a> so that if people are searching for you, or if you come up in their list of contacts when they do the email address thingie, they&#8217;ll see you. (<em>Thanks, Cos!</em>)</span></li>
<li><span class="msgtxt en">Another good idea is to <a href="http://twitter.com/account/picture">change your icon</a> right away, so that you get rid of the ugly brown default Twitter one. One, it&#8217;ll help differentiate your tweets in your followers&#8217; feeds, and two, it&#8217;ll help people recognize you when they&#8217;re looking for you. Many people advocate for using a real picture of yourself, but I say as long as it&#8217;s something interesting and unique, go for it.<br />
</span></li>
</ul>
<h3><span class="msgtxt en">Setting your settings: web, email, phone, IM &#8212; oh my!</span></h3>
<p><span class="msgtxt en">One of the best things about using Twitter is that it&#8217;s available from any number of devices. You can read and post on the Twitter website, sure, but you can also set up your cellphone to be able to send and receive messages &#8212; go to <a href="http://twitter.com/devices">Settings &#8211;&gt; Devices</a> to see how to do that. I don&#8217;t get every tweet sent to my phone, because it&#8217;d just be too much. I have my phone set to receive direct messages only, so it&#8217;s an additional way to get txt messages from my friends.</span></p>
<p>You can also download any number of applications to use Twitter on your <span class="msgtxt en">phone&#8211; I use </span><a href="http://www.ubertwitter.com/">UberTwitter</a><span class="msgtxt en"> for my Blackberry Bold, and it&#8217;s sort of bare-bones, but it gets the job done. If you&#8217;re on an iPhone, there&#8217;s about a jillion apps to choose from. It&#8217;s hard for me to keep up with what the hipsters are using now, so, iPhone users: What&#8217;s your favorite Twitter app? Leave it in the comments.</span></p>
<p><span class="msgtxt en">You can also keep your Twittering private. In the <a href="http://twitter.com/account/settings">Settings</a> page, at the bottom, there&#8217;s a checkbox that reads &#8220;Protect my updates.&#8221; Select this if you only want people you approve to read your updates.<br />
</span></p>
<p><span class="msgtxt en">Another thing to consider is that you can have your tweets also update your Facebook status. Most folks are split on whether this is a good idea or not; I&#8217;m a more the merrier kinda grrl, so mine are hooked up. You can do this by adding the <a href="http://apps.facebook.com/twitter/">Twitter app </a>to your profile and adjusting your settings there. Or check out the extremely awesome <a href="https://ping.fm">Ping.fm</a> service. This bad boy updates all of your social networks at once, using whatever type of communication you&#8217;re most comfortable with. Last, there&#8217;s another app for Facebook that lets you selectively post from Twitter&#8211; it&#8217;s conveniently called &#8220;<a href="http://apps.facebook.com/selectivetwitter/">Selective Twitter</a>.&#8221;<br />
</span></p>
<p><span class="msgtxt en">There are also tons of applications that you can download for your computer, but that&#8217;s a whole &#8216;nuther post on its own. Currently, the popular apps seem to be <a href="http://www.tweetdeck.com">Tweetdeck</a>, <a href="http://www.twhirl.org/">Twhirl</a>, and <a href="http://www.alertthingy.com/">AlertThingy</a>. I liked <a href="http://www.drinkbrainjuice.com/blogo">Blogo</a> (which is a combo of blogging and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micro-blogging">microblogging</a> software) myself, for a long time. Tweetdeck had just a little bit too much going on for me, and while Blogo isn&#8217;t as robust as far as features go, the interface is so clean and Mac-fluent that it just makes me feel good. I&#8217;m now mostly using <a href="http://www.atebits.com/tweetie-mac/">Tweetie for Mac</a> because of a keychain problem I had with Blogo that never got resolved.<br />
</span></p>
<h3><span class="msgtxt en">But what do I say?</span></h3>
<p><span class="msgtxt en">Well, just about anything, really. Okay, we&#8217;re probably not going to be interested in your belly button lint&#8230; but here are some methodologies you can try out:</span></p>
<ul>
<li><span class="msgtxt en"><strong>Pure professional. </strong>You&#8217;re an expert in your field and you want to share this with the world. Pick a couple of &#8220;beats&#8221; and focus your twittering on those beats. Find other folks tweeting about these topics and have conversations with them.</span></li>
<li><span class="msgtxt en"><strong>Pure personal.</strong> Your cat is hilarious, you&#8217;re thinking about moving to Wisconsin, you&#8217;re on your way to Miami for a much needed vacation. You get the idea here, but do try to keep your audience in mind as you post some of your life&#8217;s minutiae. I&#8217;m guilty of posting weird stuff, for sure.</span></li>
<li><span class="msgtxt en"><strong>The blended model. </strong>This is the way to go, and what ultimately makes Twitter so interesting, in my opinion. If I wanted to know people&#8217;s political analysis only, I&#8217;d go read their blogs. There&#8217;s a humanizing effect of reading about a distant colleague&#8217;s child&#8217;s first words, or seeing that people you think are on top of the world have bad days, too. It creates empathy and insight. When I tweeted that I&#8217;d had a really rough, emotional weekend once, I was surprised to see which followers spoke up to say, &#8220;Hey, we&#8217;re with you.&#8221; And it helped further complete a picture of me for them, as well.<br />
</span></li>
</ul>
<p>One of the biggest things to keep in mind about Twitter is that it&#8217;s a <em>conversation</em>. I generally dissuade <span class="msgtxt en">my fellow Twitter gurus from making blanket statements on how to use Twitter, but it&#8217;s clear at this point that one of the joys most everyone gets out of it is talking to one another. Reply often (remember your vocab? the <strong>@</strong> symbol is your friend!) to your followers and people you follow. Twitter is a two way street, with many, many lanes going both directions.<br />
</span></p>
<h3><span class="msgtxt en">What if I don&#8217;t like the people I&#8217;m following?</span></h3>
<p>Stop following them.</p>
<p>No, really. If people are irritating, or tweeting so much that your stream/feed is overwhelmed and you&#8217;re missing other stuff you find more interesting, stop following those people. It&#8217;s okay. Manually check their pages every once in a while (this is what I do), or friend them on Facebook to follow their updates there, if you want. Or just walk away altogether.</p>
<h3><span class="msgtxt en">This is all too much!</span></h3>
<p><span class="msgtxt en">Check out my post on <a href="http://www.deannazandt.com/2009/01/26/twitter-overload/">Twitter overload</a>.</span></p>
<p><span class="msgtxt en">In closing, there are a few final wrap-up points:</span></p>
<ul>
<li><span class="msgtxt en">Twitter should be used how you feel most comfortable using it&#8211; don&#8217;t let anyone tell you that you&#8217;re doing it wrong.</span></li>
<li><span class="msgtxt en">It takes a while to get the feel of Twitter. Commit, if you can, to trying it a couple times a day for two weeks or so. At the end of your little trial period, assess how you feel and how you think you&#8217;ll use it.</span></li>
</ul>
<p>I&#8217;d love to hear from folks who are just starting out with Twitter: Does this clear anything up for you? Did I miss anything? And you hardened veterans out there, of course feel free to leave your $.02 in the comments as well.</p>
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		<title>On Election Day: protecting the vote, and more</title>
		<link>http://www.deannazandt.com/2008/11/04/on-election-day-protecting-the-vote-and-more/</link>
		<comments>http://www.deannazandt.com/2008/11/04/on-election-day-protecting-the-vote-and-more/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 04 Nov 2008 15:45:16 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>deanna zandt</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Media]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Politics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Tech]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[TechGrrl Tips]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[disenfranchisement]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[election day]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[election protection]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[izzy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[techgrrl]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[technology]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[twitter]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[vote]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[voter fraud]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[voting]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.deannazandt.com/?p=261</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[[Following is an email I sent out this morning...] Good morning from the south side of Brooklyn, all! Many of you know my commitment and activism around protecting voters from fraud, disenfranchisement and general craziness. In 2004, I traveled to Ohio to volunteer with the Election Protection coalition; this year, I wasn&#8217;t able to make [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>[Following is an email I sent out this morning...]</p>
<p>Good morning from the south side of Brooklyn, all!</p>
<p>Many of you know my commitment and activism around protecting voters from fraud, disenfranchisement and general craziness. In 2004, I traveled to Ohio to volunteer with the Election Protection coalition; this year, I wasn&#8217;t able to make it out of town (due to this lovely little addition to the family: meet <a href="http://www.deannazandt.com/2008/10/20/welcome-izzy-louise/">Izzy Louise</a>).</p>
<p>I&#8217;ve instead been working on a digital election protection project that uses a variety of tools to allow people to report on their voting experiences: <strong>check out Twitter Vote Report at <a href="http://twittervotereport.com/">http://twittervotereport.com/</a></strong> . There are a couple amazing things about this project:</p>
<p>&#8211; you don&#8217;t have to use Twitter to report: text messages, phone calls, iPhones, Androids are all in play<br />
&#8211; an *amazing* all-volunteer team came together from across the country to build out the coalition, site &amp; tools in under two weeks</p>
<p>&#8220;This is a historic moment&#8221; is what we&#8217;re going to hear all day today, and I could be prouder to have played a part in making new technologies the means to a better end. (For those keeping score at home: I did the logo, design, website buildout, and helped make the maps and other bits look nice.)</p>
<p>I&#8217;ll also be <a href="http://grittv.org">reporting live for GRITtv with Laura Flanders</a> from 12pm-2pm ET today on what we&#8217;re seeing; you can also watch the 5-minute clip of me on yesterday&#8217;s show, too:</p>
<p><object classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" width="500" height="322" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0"><param name="src" value="http://blip.tv/play/AdfNUQA" /><embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="500" height="322" src="http://blip.tv/play/AdfNUQA" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object></p>
<p>Hope this finds you well&#8230; don&#8217;t forget to go vote. ;-)</p>
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		<title>TechGrrl Tips: High Tech Voting</title>
		<link>http://www.deannazandt.com/2008/10/02/techgrrl-tips-high-tech-voting/</link>
		<comments>http://www.deannazandt.com/2008/10/02/techgrrl-tips-high-tech-voting/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 02 Oct 2008 13:47:58 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>deanna zandt</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Media]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Politics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Tech]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[TechGrrl Tips]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[alternet]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[grittv]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[technology]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[verified voting]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[voting]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.deannazandt.com/?p=251</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Check me out on GRITtv discussing the pros and cons (well, mostly the cons) of electronic voting. Along with me in the segment are Steven Rosenfeld, senior fellow at AlterNet and the author of Count My Vote: A Citizen&#8217;s Guide to Voting, Bo Lipari, Executive Director of New Yorkers for Verified Voting, and of course, [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><object classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" width="500" height="322" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0"><param name="src" value="http://blip.tv/play/8HTQxgKMlgs" /><embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="500" height="322" src="http://blip.tv/play/8HTQxgKMlgs" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object></p>
<p>Check me out on <a href="http://grittv.org/">GRITtv</a> discussing the pros and cons (well, mostly the cons) of electronic voting.  Along with me in the segment are Steven Rosenfeld, senior fellow at AlterNet and the author of <a href="https://www.alternet.org/books/11/Count+My+Vote%3A+A+Citizen's+Guide+to+Voting/">Count My Vote: A Citizen&#8217;s Guide to Voting</a>, Bo Lipari, Executive Director of <a href="http://www.nyvv.org/">New Yorkers for Verified Voting</a>, and of course, host with the most, Laura Flanders.</p>
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		<title>TechGrrl Tips #3: Social network fatigue got you down?</title>
		<link>http://www.deannazandt.com/2008/09/12/techgrrl-tips-3-social-network-fatigue-got-you-down/</link>
		<comments>http://www.deannazandt.com/2008/09/12/techgrrl-tips-3-social-network-fatigue-got-you-down/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 12 Sep 2008 12:41:18 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>deanna zandt</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Tech]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[TechGrrl Tips]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[atomkeep]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ping.fm]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[social network]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[social network fatigue]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[techgrrl]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[techology]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.deannazandt.com/?p=233</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><embed src="http://blip.tv/play/AczfAwA" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="500" height="322" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></p>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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		<title>TechGrrl Tips #3: The power of social media during crisis</title>
		<link>http://www.deannazandt.com/2008/09/03/techgrrl-tips-3-the-power-of-social-media-during-crisis/</link>
		<comments>http://www.deannazandt.com/2008/09/03/techgrrl-tips-3-the-power-of-social-media-during-crisis/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 03 Sep 2008 11:28:09 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>deanna zandt</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Politics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Tech]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[TechGrrl Tips]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[gustav]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[gustavwiki.com]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[hanna]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[hurricane]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ike]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[protest]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[rnc]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[technology]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[twitter]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[wiki]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.deannazandt.com/?p=221</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><embed src="http://blip.tv/play/8HTLoWuMlgs" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="500" height="322" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></p>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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		<title>TechGrrl Tips #2: It&#8217;s not email, it&#8217;s you.</title>
		<link>http://www.deannazandt.com/2008/07/16/techgrrl-tips-2-its-not-email-its-you/</link>
		<comments>http://www.deannazandt.com/2008/07/16/techgrrl-tips-2-its-not-email-its-you/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 16 Jul 2008 19:35:34 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>deanna zandt</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Tech]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[TechGrrl Tips]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[email]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[management]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[techgrrl]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.deannazandt.com/?p=124</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Oh! And here are the tutorials I promised. Well, at least for Mac Mail, and for Gmail&#8230; Thunderbird is still in the works, and here&#8217;s a good one you can watch for Outlook. Listservs &#038; Mac Mail: Listservs &#038; Gmail:]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><embed src="http://blip.tv/play/8HTCuGSMlgs" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="320" height="270" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed> </p>
<p>Oh! And here are the tutorials I promised. Well, at least for Mac Mail, and for Gmail&#8230; Thunderbird is still in the works, and <a href="http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1043901003834474952&#038;q=outlook+rules+tutorial&#038;ei=gGl-SPO1KorQ4gL325GcCw">here&#8217;s a good one you can watch for Outlook</a>. </p>
<p><strong>Listservs &#038; Mac Mail:</strong></p>
<p><embed src="http://blip.tv/play/AcLUMdMR" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="320" height="270" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed> </p>
<p><strong>Listservs &#038; Gmail: </strong></p>
<p><embed src="http://blip.tv/play/AcLUTtMR" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="320" height="270" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed> </p>
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		<title>Premiere: TechGrrl Tips on GRITtv</title>
		<link>http://www.deannazandt.com/2008/06/25/premiere-techgrrl-tips-on-grittv/</link>
		<comments>http://www.deannazandt.com/2008/06/25/premiere-techgrrl-tips-on-grittv/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 25 Jun 2008 13:55:33 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>deanna zandt</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Media]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Performance]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Personal News]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Tech]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[TechGrrl Tips]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[grittv]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[laura flanders]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[techgrrl]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[video]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.deannazandt.com/?p=120</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I&#8217;m super excited to announce that my new segment on GRITtv with Laura Flanders has launched! I&#8217;ll be doing regular segments featuring all things tech: politics (like episode 1, here), life hacks, sanity checks, gadget giddiness, you name it. Have suggestions or hot tips? Send them to blog AT deannazandt.com!]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>I&#8217;m super excited to announce that my new segment on <a href="http://lauraflanders.firedoglake.com/">GRITtv with Laura Flanders</a> has launched! I&#8217;ll be doing regular segments featuring all things tech: politics (like episode 1, here), life hacks, sanity checks, gadget giddiness, you name it. Have suggestions or hot tips? Send them to <a href="mailto:blog AT deannazandt.com">blog AT deannazandt.com</a>!</p>
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	</channel>
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