This article was written for the Networking group MBG for their February 2010 newsletter.

Typical Twitter Page
1. The Page Background
You can set the background design and colour of your page by clicking on the ‘Settings’ menu tab (at the top right of the page) and then click the ‘Design’ menu tab on the page that appears. You can also design your own background or take a photograph and place it on your profile background. The background could display your photo, your company logo and a description of what you do or what your organisation does. It could also display your contact information.
2. What’s Happening?
Type in your tweets using this box.
3. Main area
Here are all the tweets of the people you follow arranged with the most recent at the top of the page.
4. Main Menu
You can view and alter your profile using this menu as well as change your user name, and search for people you know.
5. Following/Followers
These two numbers show you how many people you are following and how many others are following you. To see a profile picture and a description of them just click on the words and a list will be displayed in the main window.
6. Lists
Using a list allows you to group together people who you follow on Twitter so that you can view only their tweets. For example all the people who write about the subject of motor racing are in a list and by clicking on the list name only their tweets appear in the main window. Other people can include you in their lists and you can view all lists you create or are included in by clicking the ‘Lists’ link.
7. Home
Clicking here will refresh the main screen and show you the latest tweets from those you follow.
8. @username
Click on this heading to see all the tweets where your user name is mentioned.
9. Direct messages
If you want to privately message someone then click here and your message will not appear on the main time line.
10. Favourites
If someone sends you a tweet that you’d like to save then click the little star icon on the left of the tweet text on the time line and it will be saved in your favourites, click this link to view them all.
11. Retweets
When you rebroadcast someone else’s tweet add an ‘RT’ to the front and include their user name with the ‘@’ symbol at the front. Any of your tweets that are rebroadcast will be displayed under this heading, as are those retweets you make and retweets made by people you follow.
12. Search
Type in a name or any other search term to find tweets that contain that term.
Linking up
The most popular use for Twitter comes about when it is combined with your website or blog. Whenever you write a
blog post or update your website or e-commerce store you can promote it to your twitter followers by including a web link in your tweet to encourage them to visit your blog or website.
Using web links
Long web links really eat into your character limit when making a tweet so use a specialist link shortening website to help you cram more into each tweet. (Try www.Tinyurl.com or www.bit.ly). These sites allow you to past in a long web link which it will then shorten for you. Simply copy and paste the shortened link into your tweet.
Automatic updates
Facebook and Linked-in can now be set up automatically to update from your Twitter status. Most social and business networking websites have a gadget that allows you to set this up. Once your Twitter account updates all your social or business networking profiles it means that you only have to type in your links and promotions once for them to be rebroadcast to all the people you have connections with, however they keep in touch with you.
There is also code that you can use to include a twitter feed on your website or blog. This code fetches and displays your tweets so that they can be seen by visitors to your website or blog without them needing to visit the Twitter site at all.
Facebook Fan Pages
These are an extension to the personal profile that you can build in Facebook and are useful for business because they
have space for galleries of photographs, useful for portfolios of work or to show pictures of your office and how to find it. There is also a place for your address and opening hours, customers can write on your wall with testimonials or you can place special offers, news stories and events on there to keep your ‘fans’ interested.
Create Design Studio have covered Facebook Fan Pages in this blogpost.
If you would like to use social networking sites to promote your organisation please call Create Design Studio on 01962 737989 and we can help you set up your website or blog and create profiles using social networking websites as well as guiding you on linking them together effectively.