Customer Reviews

Twitter Tips, Tricks, and Tweets

5 star:		(38)
4 star:		(17)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

My teenage daughters talked me into signing up for Twitter. I had no idea what I was getting into. But I had found a few old school friends and work colleagues on Facebook, so I thought: Why not?

When I started getting emails from perfect strangers saying they were "following" me on Twitter, I thought perhaps I should find out what this phenomenon was really all about. So I ordered this book.

The book is well-written, and keeps within the parameters of knowledge which would belong to the average computer-savvy person (i.e. someone who can use a computer to surf for pleasure, word process, send email and do their office job.) It explained the reasoning behind Twitter, which is to keep up with friends and their lives in short bursts (bytes, really) of frequent information. The book also explains how to use shortcuts and extra features to enhance one's Twitter experience.

What the book did for me, admirably, is convince me that Twitter is a complete waste of time. I am already inundated with information which I feel I must assimilate to stay current in this fast-paced world. Twitter is an electronic pastime which I can safely do without. This book helped me decide that, and I think it did a good job of it.

You might come to the opposite conclusion after reading this book. It's an excellent resource, no matter what you decide.

Highly recommended.

Twitter as a social networking tool is exploding and this book is the first to help you untangle all of information you need to learn about Twitter and put out your first "tweet." It provides a good foundation for the basics of getting started but it is also loaded with intermediate and advanced tips and tricks to get the most out of Twitter. Whether you just want to start tweeting or are looking for ways to leverage Twitter to its fullest, I think you'll find everything you need to learn and maximize Twitter in this book.

Full disclosure: By the time I read this book, I had been active on twitter for over a year. I had several hundred followers and was following several hundred people. In addition, I was a technical editor for a book on Programming the Twitter API

With that said, I considered the value of this book from both a power user's perspective as well as a complete n00b.

Twitter is extremely popular and there are tons of people on it. There are several items that you probably won't understand at first and it can be daunting. There are several gotchas you'll want to avoid. There are many things you can do to make Tweeting easier and the same goes for reading tweets. If you are new to twitter or are considering joining it, I can't think of a better resource.

-The book is very easy to read. The author's style is one that makes for very pleasant reading. He's concise and to the point yet covers topics very thoroughly. He uses anecdotes and works hard to keep the material light and interesting, but it's also very technical. You could easily read this book in a night or two which, for new users would probably be a good idea. I'd recommend reading the first few chapters, then going to twitter and playing around with what you know. Then read the next few and repeat until the end. The only reason I say this is b/c in many ways, the book is like a waterfall. There's just a ton of material and suggestions in it and the overwhelming majority are things that you'll definitely want to use or consider. It's not hard to build a catalog of every feature. What he does instead is cover just about every imagineable aspect of twitter while explaining why you'd want to do something a certain way or use a certain feature. He explains the basics and then proceeds to areas more suited to power users. By taking a few breaks and trying everything out, everything will sink in and you'll likely get more out of it. The thing is, there's so many cool tips that you'll invariably forget a few b/c each time you read of a new one, it gets you thinking about what you can do with it.

He'll get you started setting up the account. From there he'll walk you through finding people to follow (either people you already know, or people you'd likely find interesting). He explains how to search for items and how to get started the right way. He also warns you about what type of people to avoid and what to do if you find you've been had by a Spam bot or troll.

From there he walks you through commonly used features in twitter and explains items like #hashtags. I know many people who've used twitter for a while and seen #hashtags but didn't know what they were. He covers #hashtags and @responses. He explains trending topics as well.

In addition he explains various twitter clients and why you might want to use them as opposed to the web interface. And of course he explains using twitter from your phone exclusively. By now, I'm sure there are a bunch of new iPhone and Android apps but he did have many good suggestions.

He lists some interesting people you might want to follow and provides many references and links to twitter information.

If you're a seasoned Twitter user, you'll still find this book useful. It's a great master reference for one thing. For another, he clearly is a power user and explains how to use twitter as a power user. I already mentioned the twitter tools and an explanation as to why you'd use the web interface, phone interface or a twitter client. In that discussion you get the pros and cons of each. He also discusses keeping yourself safe on twitter and how to spot potential problem followers. If you've used Twitter for any period of time, you probably already have your own methods of doing this - I know I did - but I incorporated his thoughts as well. The other thing a power user will benefit from is his explanation of the features and why they matter. The area that sticks out most for me was searching and hashtags. I knew how to search but never used it prior to reading this book. He explained how I could go about finding other Twitterers that I might find interesting and how to find information on topics I found interesting. I also seldomly used #hashtags before reading this. I used them occassionally but very rare overall. Then I understood why they matter (to be honest, when I first saw them, I thought they were some unofficial convention people just decided to use - it wasn't until i started seeing the trending links that I realized they were an officially supported feature. He also goes into depth about @responses - these are fairly self-explanatory but it is helfpul to understand the why and how (at first, I never used the @ sign when responding to people).

There is coverage of twitter etiquette (which isn't objective by any means - nonetheless, his suggestions are all items I incorporated if I wasn't doing them already).

Finally, he provides a lot of "for futher information" coverage. He gives out links, twitter ids and the like of places to find good information and people that you might want to follow. I ended up following several of them and definitely ended up using many of his suggestions.

I think this book will be valueable to anyone interested in Twitter. It'll help you avoid common pitfalls and can literally make you a power user in just a few hours. You'll also understand how to use Twitter to your advantage very quickly which will likely perk your interst in it. If you're already a Twitter Power user - there's still good information and reminders and I don't think you'd find the book boring (although the account creation and adding people material is probably stuff you could skip over). It's well written (very well written IMHO), easy to read and fun. And it's easy to follow along - the book's organization is superb. If you took the same info and structured it differently, it wouldn't be hard to come up with something that was hard to follow. It looks like he put a good bit of thought into grouping of information b/c *everything is where you'd expect to find it*. I didn't find any typos that I can remember or grammar errors. All the links worked and everything referenced was available just as advertised. He's obviously a seasoned author who knows how to write a very readable book. His attention to detail is reflected in virtually every aspect of the book and it's definitely something any Twitter user will get something out of.

What can you say about a social media phenomenon that limits messages to 140 characters? Quite a lot it turns out, but maybe not enough to fill a 250-page book. While Tweeting is about editing your thoughts down the bare minimum, writing books about Twitter seems to be about expanding them: including pages and pages on things that are self-explanatory, full of hype, or just repetitive. But good books on Twitter offer information people new to this form of social media might find helpful, and this book does just that.

First let me get the drawbacks of this book out of the way:

1. I found very little before page 24 that I couldn't figure out on my own by visiting the Twitter website. For example, the entire section on how to sign up for a Twitter account should be unnecessary to almost anyone. The next 100 pages contain much repetition and information only useful to specific users. For example, there are pages about Twitter text commands, when all one really needs is the information in table 5.1 on page 98, and only if you're using the kind of cell phone that needs text commands to begin with. Things don't really get interesting until page 154.

2. Through no fault at all on the part of the writer, Twitter is constantly changing, so some information is already irrelevant or out of date. This is inevitable when dealing with any quickly developing form of technology. For example, the book mentions "@ replies", but it seems this has been replaced by "@your_twitter_name." The book also mention that Twitter hasn't been subjected to Spammers yet, but I've found many, many Spammers there; and the book mentions the search field on your home page is in development, but it already exists. There are also positive new developments in Twitter, like new apps, the book doesn't mention because they haven't been around that long. Mr. Twitter, for example, is a great new way to find people your Twitter friends have in common, but it's too new to be in the book. The technology changes so quickly.

3. Again not the writer's fault, but the book mentions the Twitter "Fail Whale" and doesn't mention that the Fail Whale might fail to appear when certain problems arise. Recently I tried to change my avatar and Twitter kept telling me the picture was uploading just fine, when it wasn't. Fortunately, the book does mention how to find out the Twitter status page, which is where I learned that thousands of Twitter users were experiencing the same problems.

Now the positives:

1. The book is very clear and friendly, and it should make it very easy for anyone starting with Twitter.

2. It offers some pretty good tips that even many experienced Twitter users might not know about yet. You'll learn about using your page's background to tell more about yourself, TweetDeck, twirl, iTweet, Tweetree, Tweetvisor, adding widgets or gadgets, tinyURL, TwitPic, sharing music and videos and much more.

3. There's no hype here, no one telling you you need Twitter, or that it's going to make you rich. That's not what Twitter is about, and this book acknowledges that. So many other books on Twitter do the opposite. How you use Twitter is up to you. I'm a writer and a news addict, so most of the people I follow on Twitter are writers, publishers, agents and other people in the book industry. I also follow certain news outlets, like Good Morning America, and a few people I find funny, like Rainn Wilson, from the NBC's The Office. But there are as many different ways to use Twitter as there are Twitterers. Will Twitter entertain you? Maybe. Make you better informed? Maybe. More connected with people you care about? Maybe. Rich? Probably not. Do you need it? Probably not. Will you enjoy it once you're on it? Maybe. It's up to you.

4. I know I've said this before, but I'll say it again because it deserves repeating: this book is very clear. It contains many full-color screen shots that make navigating Twitter easy.

So all in all this is a good book on Twitter. The only things I would change would be get rid of much of the obvious stuff and the repetition, and add a companion website with constantly updated information, perhaps in the form of a blog with links. But all in all as far as books on Twitter go, this one is pretty good.

Paul McFedries book contains all the information you need to get on board with Twitter. Though it's easy to sign up on and start using the popular social media site, this book does indeed provide you many of the latest tips, tricks, and resources for getting the most out of Twitter.

Other books about Twitter cover how to use the site as a networking and marketing strategy for your business. Paul's book instead focuses on the general Twitter user. You get step-by-step instructions about signing up on the site, customizing your Twitter homepage, connecting with other Twitter members, and doing powerful searches on Twitter. The last third of the book gives you advance resources that get you beyond and connects you back to the Twitter.com website. You learn about desktop and mobile applications for Twittering, as well how to have your Twitter updates show up on your existing web or blog site. There's even a nice two-page glossary of Twitter related lingo that will give you "tweet cred" (Twitter creditability) amongst your friends and associates.

This book is beautifully illustrated, and the writing is clear and concise. I kinda wish, though, that it was formatted in 6x9 size, rather the traditional 9x6 book size. The landscape orientation would have made this book feel more like the true guide that it is.

Much of the information found in this book is available for free on the Internet, but having these resources collected in one place saves you time from doing all that searching. The author is a prolific writer who has sold books worldwide. So this book is well worth the price if you want to get up to speed on Twitter.

This book gives you all the detailed, easy-to-follow instructions you need to use Twitter as well as associated tools that can help you manage the flow of tweets. It covers features such as language translation tools and tweeting by mobile phone that wouldn't be easy to find on your own.

I had hoped to find ideas for using Twitter to build and enhance business relationships, for my copywriting services and books as well as for my clients. However, this book does not address business use and strategies. Instead, it focuses almost entirely on the mechanics of using Twitter, and on using the service for personal communications.

"Twitter Tips, Tricks, and Tweets" is full of useful advice for anyone new to Twitter or current "Twitterers" who want to increase their knowledge. The book has nine chapters covering:

1. Getting started

2. Customizing your profile to get a unique look

3. Sending tweets

4. Finding, following, and replying to other Twitter users

5. Using Twitter on your cell phone

6. Finding topics and people in Twitter, tips on Twitter search

7. Integrating Twitter with other social media and blogs

8. Different clients and gadgets for Twitter

9. Twitter extensions for sharing non-text media, scheduling, and analytics

I have been a Twitter user for some time, but I still found a number of new Tips and Tricks. The chapter on using Twitter on your cell phone is especially helpful, since the tiny interface is a challenge. The last three chapters are full of information not readily available elsewhere. I wish I had this book before I integrated my Twitter and Facebook accounts--I would not have spent so much time trying to do something that won't work! The gadgets and clients are fascinating, even if you do not use them all (I am a fan of TweetDeck and TinyTwitter), and the external web sites in Chapter 9 are valuable if you are using Twitter for business--otherwise, they are just fun!

If you are new to Twitter, "Twitter Tips, Tricks, and Tweets" will help you use and get value from Twitter quickly. If you already tweet, you will certainly find a few tricks and tips that you did not know!

I've been a Twitter addict for about 18 months now, and I'd like to think I know the majority of what there is to know about how it works and what you can do with it. But after reading Twitter Tips, Tricks, and Tweets by Paul McFedries, I realize that you *can* teach an old dog new tricks. I picked up a number of nuggets here that have worked their way into my Twitter consciousness, making the experience even more enjoyable.

Contents:

How Do I Get Started with Twitter?; What Can I Do to Customize My Twitter Profile?; How Do I Send Twitter Updates?; How Do I Follow Other Twitter Users?; Can I Use Twitter on My Mobile Phone?; How Do I Find Stuff in Twitter?; Where Can I Display My Twitter Feed?; How Can I Take Twitter to the Next Level?; What Tools Can I Use to Extend Twitter?; Glossary; Index

As you might expect with a book like this, it's primarily geared to the person who either has never used Twitter or who has signed up for a Twitter account but never tried it. And for that, the book is perfect. McFedries writes in a simple, conversational mode that appeals to someone who is unfamiliar with the technology. Combine that with an abundance of pictures and illustrations, and I could give this to my dad as a starter guide, and he'd get it. Even given that Twitter is an online tool that can change at any time, the information layout is such that it should age relatively well. He focuses on concepts as well as details, and information about Twitter etiquette and how to effectively retweet don't ever go out of style.

For those of us who *have* been using Twitter for awhile, there is still some value here. The last two chapters reference a number of third-party sites that allow Twitter to be used in non-conventional ways (compared to just straight tweeting). Using Twittercal to update your Google Calendar has some useful implications. Even better is the LinkedIn Company Buzz widget that tracks tweets that mention the company (or companies) that you work(ed) for. I'm a firm believer in keeping a finger on the pulse of what's being said about your company, and Twitter is a great way to do that in real-time. Had it not been for this book, I might not have discovered that cool feature.

Granted, the more time that passes between the publication date and the time you read the book, the more chance there is that some of the information might become dated or just flat-out incorrect. And yes, the geeks among us might argue that you can find all this information via web sites or researching it on your own. But not all (potential) Twitter users are geeks, and Twitter Tips, Tricks, and Tweets is a great way to open up the door to allow those people the chance to get up to speed quickly. And even the geeks might learn a thing or two they didn't know before...

Disclosure:

Obtained From: Amazon Vine Review Program

Payment: Free

As a casual Twitter user, I was very interested in going through this book and picking up all the things I didn't know about Twitter. And the book did not disappoint. Everyone (except for Twitter experts) has to benefit and learn something new by going through the book.

The chapters are nicely organized, and the material presented in an easy to read and easy to follow manner. There are plenty of screen-shots, so you can get a feeling of what is happening without having to look at the computer.

Having said that, you can squeeze the most out of this book if you are reading it next to a computer. That way you can try the new features or new ideas presented in the book right away. Doing this would cement them in your memory, and increase the chances that if you picked up a good tip, you will remember it and carry it forward.

Obviously, there are a lot of learning resources about Twitter online, but for a lot of people, reading a book may be a more practical or effective way of learning new things. If nothing else, a book forces you to concentrate on a single-task. Something that cannot be said when you are in-front of Firefox with the whole world just a click away.

The book is not perfect, it has some minor issues. For example, some of the chapters earlier in the book have some sub-segments that feel a little bit out of place. Also, on page #11, the book misses the simplest tip on how to use multiple Twitter accounts on the same computer: use different browsers!

I have read this book as someone already familiar with Twitter, and I have picked up a number tips, suggestions and ideas. Since I was already familiar with Twitter, I cannot experience how an absolute beginner to Twitter may find this book.

However, based on having read the book cover to cover, I can recommend this book to anyone interested in learning more about Twitter!

This book is different from the standard Internet how-to volume. It's a very detailed reference with four-color illustrations throughout, no skimping. It begins at the very beginning -- how to open a Twitter account -- and walks you all the way through. No fluff or hype, just detailed instructions and perspective.

I've read every Twitter book on the market, and this one is perhaps my favorite. I'll be glad to have this manual handy.