Getting started, tools, tips, tricks and what not to do

J uly 2014
Louise McGregor
Changememe.com
CC-BY
Twitter Basics
Introduction ......................................................................................................... 3
Chapter 1; 3 Twitter Basics .................................................................................... 4
1: Your profile ...................................................................................................................................................... 4
3: Who to follow? ............................................................................................................................................... 6
Chapter 2; 3 More Twitter Basics ........................................................................... 7
1: Your Tweets ..................................................................................................................................................... 7
2: Building a following ....................................................................................................................................... 8
3: Twitter Etiquette ............................................................................................................................................ 9
4: Increasing the Interaction ........................................................................................................................... 9
Chapter 3; Tools for Twitter ................................................................................ 10
1: Tools for using Twitter .............................................................................................................................. 10
2: Analysing Twitter ........................................................................................................................................ 11
3: Managing Followers ................................................................................................................................... 11
4: Measuring Reach ........................................................................................................................................ 12
5: Visualising Data From Twitter ................................................................................................................. 12
6: Archive Tweets ............................................................................................................................................ 12
Chapter 4; Companies on Twitter ........................................................................ 13
1: Customer Service ........................................................................................................................................ 13
2: Customer Engagement ............................................................................................................................. 13
3: Marketing ...................................................................................................................................................... 14
4: Online Brand ................................................................................................................................................. 14
5: Build a Customer Network ....................................................................................................................... 14
Some Dos .......................................................................................................................................................... 15
Some Donts ...................................................................................................................................................... 15
Chapter 5; Trolls, fakers, hackers and scams ........................................................ 16
Fakers .................................................................................................................................................................. 16
Trolls ................................................................................................................................................................ .... 17
Hackers................................................................................................................................................................ 18
Scams ................................................................................................................................................................... 19
A final word ........................................................................................................ 19


Louise McGregor | changememe.com | CC BY SA
2
Twitter Basics
Introduction

This whole series was inspired by someone Ive never met, asking a
questions on a discussion forum. After giving a few tips on getting started I
decided to put together a short guide to help people get started, which turned
into five posts and about 5000 words.

Twitter is a micro-blogging service available online or via various apps. It was
created in 2006, but real growth in user numbers didnt start until early 2009,
which is about when I joined, a year later I started a company account which I
ran for about two years.

I use my personal account (@changememe) to find new content, to post my
own content (I tweeted all of the blog posts in this series), interact in regular
chats and to share things Ive found online. Ive met new people, solved
service issues, and been invited to speak at a conference via twitter. For me
its been a positive experience and I use twitter every day. Here are the basics
of what Ive learnt in five years of using twitter, I hope it helps you to get
started.

As with everything in the online world Ive checked all the links, data and
information, but things change. If you spot an error let me know via twitter, Ill
do my best to correct it.

Ive released this under a creative commons licence, CC-BY-SA this means
you are free to use, re-use, adjust or build on this work, I only ask that you
credit me, preferably with a link to my blog, and share the new work under the
same licence.



Louise McGregor
Changememe.com


Louise McGregor | changememe.com | CC BY SA
3
Twitter Basics
Chapter 1; 3 Twitter Basics
Your profile, Twitter conventions and who to
follow.
1: Your profile
There are a few things you need to figure out
when setting up your profile, if its a brand new
account it will have the new format, if its an old
account it will soon have the new format so I will
focus on that here.
Your twitter handle essentially what are you
going to call yourself. The maximum length is 15
characters, but shorter is better particularly when it comes to retweets.
You can only use letters, numbers and the underscore (_), you can change
your name at any time. With millions of users a lot of the obvious twitter
names are already in use so you will have to come up with something new;
theres a tool to help you with that.
If you are a company and someone has the twitter handle of your company
name you may need to come up with a creative version of your company
name. Exceptions are when the account is being used as a spam account, or
when the account is inactive, in these cases you can claim the name from
twitter directly.
Describe yourself you can add your real
name, location and a website link. You can
also describe yourself in 160 characters or
less, you can use hashtags in this space as
well if you want to link to a theme of content.
For personal accounts there seems to be a
trend to mix the professional, the personal
and the humorous or surprising, as
exemplified on Madeleine Albrights current
twitter profile (shown on the left). Some
companies try to follow this pattern, oreo
manages to add humour to their profile.
Your avatar the picture beside your name.
Twitter recommends an image size of 400px
x 400px, this means it will look good on your
profile page and be resized for all other
uses. I suggest checking how it looks after upload though you still want it to
look good in the 73px x 73px as it appears in the stream next to each tweet
you make.
Louise McGregor | changememe.com | CC BY SA
4
Twitter Basics
Not uploading an avatar means youll get an anonymous silhouette image,
some people wont follow accounts that have not bothered to upload an
avatar.
Header image the large image appearing at the top of your profile page. The
dimensions for this are 1500px x 500px, but you do have an opportunity to
resize and adjust the image after uploading.
2: Conventions for tweeting
Once youve got your profile set up its time to take a deep breath and start
tweeting. Heres a few things you need to know to get started.
@someone beginning a tweet with someones user name means your tweet is
brought to that persons attention. So if you send a tweet with @changememe
in it, I will see it in my notifications. This is important because I dont watch my
twitter stream all the time and if you dont use this method I probably wont
see your tweet.
The dot if you begin a tweet with the @ sign the tweet will only land in the
stream of the person (or people) youve mentioned. If you put something
before the @, a full stop for example, the tweet will more widely seen.

Seen by @josecelades, he gets a
notification. Seen by people who follow
both @josecelades and me.
Seen by everyone who follows me (and
@josecelades still gets a notification)
Hashtags; these are ways of adding a subject to your tweet, simply put # in
front of the word you want to connect to. Twitter users use hashtags to find
relevant information, to have conversations and to add humour to a tweet.
Theyve also been used for political effect, as I write this #YesAllWomen is
trending.
RT/MT/HT the most common is RT, which means Im retweeting someone
elses tweet. You can now retweet from the twitter platform, which gives a
nicer format to the retweet, but the tweet remains the same.
MT is short for modified tweet, a rather rare cousin of the RT. Its used if
youve altered the original tweet in some way. I do this if Ive taken a tweet in
Dutch and am retweeting it in English for example.
HT is short for hat tip, its a nice way of giving credit to a fellow tweeter or
other source.
Louise McGregor | changememe.com | CC BY SA
5
Twitter Basics
In all cases you should include @username of the original sender, and when
you do this it shows up in their notifications.
Heres an example of a retweet.

3: Who to follow?
When you first join twitter it seems weirdly empty, until you start following
people. Here are some ways to find people to follow.
Search hashtags search for hashtags relating to your interests or your company
interests, when you see some tweets of interest follow whoever tweeted them.
Conferences are a fertile ground for this as they will often use a specific
hashtag making your search easier. In addition the audience has already
identified themselves as being interested in that theme, and the posting
frequency is high for the duration of the conference.
Find Experts who are the leaders in your industry? who would be the most
influential thinkers? look for their twitter accounts, youll have an instant
stream of content if it happens to be Guy Kawasaki.
Follow people those experts follow theres a good chance that the people your
selected experts follow are also interesting for you to follow. Alternatively look
for the people who are interacting and retweeting the experts content a lot.
I always do a quick check of the persons profile and recent tweets before
clicking the follow button, I dont want to follow any fake accounts and I
generally avoid the crazies.
Follow people back as you start adding content to twitter and interacting with
others people will start to follow you, its polite to follow back.
In the next chapter, youll learn more about creating tweets and building a
following.
Louise McGregor | changememe.com | CC BY SA
6
Twitter Basics
Chapter 2; 3 More Twitter Basics
Your tweets, building a following and twitter
etiquette.
1: Your Tweets
I try to balance my content between
commenting on things Ive found on the
internet, publishing my own content and
interacting with other people. I am probably
tweeting most prolifically at conferences and
events. Ive also used it to comment on
television programmes (Apprentice and
Dragons Den in particular). Increasingly I use it to interact with brands
sometimes to to thank them, but more often to get support. Heres my how
to for all of these content types.
Your own content I write about innovation, communication and leadership on
my blog Changememe.com, I have connected it to my twitter account,
meaning that every post is publicised on twitter the moment its published.
This has an advantage because wordpress lets you schedule posts, meaning
your tweet goes at the same time.
Ill also post personal observations, as Im often in random locations to write
there tends to be a coffee theme.
Events I tweet a lot at conferences and other events, my twitter feed often
becomes my notes after the event. Its also a good way to find other people
who tweet relevant content, and conversely a good way for other people to
find you.
Other peoples content As well as using twitter I
see a lot of articles, blogs and videos online
every day. If Im sharing a tweet I tend retweet
it to give the source credit.
If I find content some other way I will make a
new tweet with my own comment. I try to credit
the source so if I know a relevant twitter handle
I will add it, as shown in the tweet at right.
I want people to credit me when they share my
content so its only fair I do the same.
Second Screen Theres a phenomenon going on
where people watch TV, while interacting via a
social media platform. I sometimes do this,
mostly during the BBC shows Apprentice and
Dragons Den. Its fun, although it can be an
Louise McGregor | changememe.com | CC BY SA
7
Twitter Basics
opportunity to snark.
Chat sessions Twitter chats are a way to have an open discussion on twitter, at
a specific time and usually structured via a series of questions.
Ive been involved in the #ESNchat, about enterprise social networks, but they
cover every subject from architecture to yoga, from cakes to veganism. Ive
found a twitter chat schedule, with the appropriate hashtag, of course you can
also start your own.
Interaction with others Dont be shy twitter become more useful and more
fun the more you interact. J ust use the @someone function, or reply to their
tweets. Most often the person responds. Sometimes good stuff comes from it.
Interaction with brands Many brands offer a service channel via twitter (or
facebook), and customers expectations have grown regarding the
responsiveness and the content of the response.
Ive had mostly good experiences when Ive used these channels, although I
think that in some companies they solve the problem for me on the day, but
dont actually solve the problem over all (Gatwick Express was one example,
they explained that I couldnt book home-print tickets on the day of travel. But
no commitment to change an illogical anti-customer practice.)
2: Building a following
Only people following you will see your content (unless you use the
@someone function to address a person specifically), so if youre sharing
content you need to build a following of people to share it with and to interact
with. Of course if youre just using twitter to discover information then this isnt
so important, you can just focus on finding people to follow.
Most people will follow you back, unless theyre in the stratosphere of
the twitterati, where the follow back rate is typically less than one percent (of
the top twenty on twitter by number of followers only Britney Spears and
Barack Obama are above 1%). I tell you this to manage expectations.
So the best thing you can do is follow people you find relevant and interesting.
If you do this slowly and steadily your follower number will grow.
DO NOT follow hundreds and hundreds of people each day, ( and do not
unfollow hundreds and hundreds of people at once). You will look like an
aggressive follower to twitters algorithm, which would then consider your
account as likely to be spam. You also look less credible to potential
followers, even humans think high follow to follower ratio looks spammy.
DO NOT buy followers, it goes against the twitter rules and it doesnt really
add anything to your account. You wont see better content, and you wont
have a bigger real audience. All that happens is a bit of PR kudos for having
Louise McGregor | changememe.com | CC BY SA
8
Twitter Basics
so many followers until someone looks closer and figures out millions of
those followers are fake then the PR turns negative.
3: Twitter Etiquette
Some people use automatic DMs (direct messages) to thank you for
following, its a nice touch (to manage expectations - I dont do it). Some auto
DMs include other ways to connect to a person or brand such as linkedin or
facebook, which seems slightly pushy to me, but OK still OK. One person
used their auto DM to ask me to buy their book. I unfollowed. I found that a
step too far. If youre going to use auto DMs I recommend a simple message,
or invitation, not a sales pitch.
If you post something on Twitter its public, and permanent.
Dont be the guy who tweets about his pay, dont be the sport fan that
abuses players online, dont threaten other twitter members, think before you
make a questionable joke. Check the public shaming site for more examples.
Twitter has moved to make reporting abusive behaviour on twitter easier, but
there are still plenty of jerks around. Dont be one.
4: Increasing the Interaction
You will get more retweets if you ask for them (add please RT) at the end of
your tweet. And youll get more favourites or retweets for tweets that contain
images or video.

Louise McGregor | changememe.com | CC BY SA
9
Twitter Basics
Chapter 3; Tools for Twitter
Using twitter, analysing twitter and
managing your following. Ive
highlighted some of my favourite tools,
but be warned, there are new tools
every week.
There are lots of tools for using twitter,
some for tweeting and scheduling
tweets, some add greatly to existing
twitter functionality, others help you
manage your followers, and some
focus on data visualisation based on
twitters data.
In generally they are using twitters API to pull publicly available data from
twitter and presenting it to you in more useful ways.
Ive tried a lot of tools over the years Ive been using twitter and these are my
favourites.
1: Tools for using Twitter
I am a fan of TweetDeck, I can manage multiple accounts from it, across
multiple devices (I have an android phone and an iPad), and it provides
multiple columns which is handy for specific searches and for any tweetchats
that you join.
It will also let me schedule tweets. There are social media experts out there
who say you shouldnt schedule tweets, and there are examples where it
has gone wrong. And there are social media experts who say you should
(selectively) schedule tweets.
I do schedule some tweets, including my blog posts, but I schedule them for
times where I am online, and able to respond to any interaction. I use
TweetDeck for this.
Twitter now allows scheduling from company accounts, and their are other
tools out there, Hootsuite is probably the most popular and it has the added
advantage of giving you some analytics, although the most interesting data is
only available for paid accounts. (See the advantages and disadvantages of
Hootsuite).


Louise McGregor | changememe.com | CC BY SA
10
Twitter Basics
2: Analysing Twitter
Ive used Tweroid, which tells
you the best time to tweet
based on when your followers
are online and active.
My profile for weekdays is
shown on the right, you can
see activity drops off a cliff
after 10pm, which is one
reason I schedule tweets. It
makes more sense to publish
at 3 or 4pm than at 9am or
10pm.
This is something I check about once a month, the peak online time has got
slightly later over the last year. Possibly because I am involved in twitchats
some evenings.
Ive used twittercounter to
check some analytics, in the
free account you can get
some basic statistics and
three months worth of data.
The graph on the left shows
followers vs following for my
account over the last three
months, you see that Ive kept
my following number close to
my follower number. Its also on a gratifyingly steady increase.
3: Managing Followers
I use unfollowers.me to track my followers. Ill generally follow back if the
account looks like a real person who is tweeting genuine content, this tool
helps me identify fake or inactive accounts. It also shows me who has
followed or unfollowed me recently and lets me follow back (or unfollow) from
within their application.
Theres another tool around that will validate followers for you called truetwit. I
havent used it but have been asked to validate my account by people who
are using it. Most days I only get a few new followers so its easy enough to
validate them myself, but I can imagine for those on very popular accounts
who want to ensure their followers are real, this would be a time saver.


Louise McGregor | changememe.com | CC BY SA
11
Twitter Basics
4: Measuring Reach
If you need to know how far your tweets reach Twitonomy will give you an
overview of how your tweets perform. Tweetreach will track how far a single
tweet reached, how many times it was retweeted and how much exposure it
ultimately got. Hashtracking will track how far a single hashtag reaches.
For detailed analysis of your twitter reach youll need to pay for a premium
service (I havent reached that level yet).
5: Visualising Data From Twitter
To see who is tweeting around the
world theres A World of Tweets,
which generates a real time heat map
of who is tweeting around the world.
It also ranks countries by tweet
volume since it started producing data
in 2010. The USA is first, but perhaps
more surprisingly Brazil comes in
second. Netherlands comes in eighth
producing 2.8% of tweets. Not bad
for a country with a population of just
under 17 million people.
Visible tweet has a cool animation of
tweets on a subject of your choice, but not really useful information beyond
that. If you want to know where your own twitter followers are then Tweep
Maps.
6: Archive Tweets
One of my favourite ways to store twitter conversations is Storify, it allows you
to curate a story timeline based on a hashtag, keyword or contributor names.
The story is then available for anyone to read with links retained, plus when
you publish it all the people whose tweets youve collected receive a
notification, which is kind. Ive used it for various events, heres one from a PR
and social media event last year.
This chapter comes with a caveat, the market of twitter tools is changing, I
went through this list of Twitter tools from two years ago and found that 30%
of the tools dont exist anymore.

Louise McGregor | changememe.com | CC BY SA
12
Twitter Basics
Chapter 4; Companies on Twitter
How companies can use twitter for
business, some dos and donts.
Ive written about some of the basics of
using twitter in earlier posts, now I want to
take a look at how companies are using
twitter for a business purpose. I want to
focus on companies getting it right but I
will point out some #fail moments!
The first thing to think about is what is
your purpose for using twitter, Ive broken
it down to five options, but of course most
companies use a combination on the
same twitter account. Which you use will
depend on your business; but make sure
you have the customer service sorted out first.

1: Customer Service
One of the most common ways of using twitter is as a customer service
channel, sometimes known as webcare. This means answering peoples
questions online, regarding your companys products and service
sometimes even when the question hasnt been directed at you. Here are
some examples of customer care tweets. I think you need to have good
customer service in place before trying the other options here, otherwise you
will hear complaints where you are trying to have a discussion.
Companies doing this include; ING, Citibank, O2, Yahoo (or flickr), AT&T and
Delta.

2: Customer Engagement
Beyond supporting your customers with service you can use twitter to have a
conversation with your customers. The benefits to the company are around
brand perception, this is a way to demonstrate the human approachable
dimension of your brand.
KLM, the Dutch airline, uses social media really well, providing good customer
care around the clock and connecting with customers using humour.


Louise McGregor | changememe.com | CC BY SA
13
Twitter Basics
Heres an example from KLM;

@SusanAretz posted a picture of a KLM plane from Madurodam, a miniature
village filled with scenes from around the Netherlands. She tweeted Im
curious where this @KLM flight is going. Soon after KLM responded Hello
Susan, this is a special flight, destination Dreamland :-)
3: Marketing
Twitter can be an effective marketing tool, it can be used to promote events,
generate leads by offering whitepapers via email signup, and offer discounts
or coupon codes. Those three options can be used for free, but their
effectiveness is going to depend on your existing following.
You can also use either promoted tweets, or a promoted account. Its hard to
find accurate figures on these because twitter promoted tweets uses a bidding
process similar to internet ad words, and the promoted account costs are
based on a cost per follower. You can however set a budget so you can cap
your spending for a twitter marketing campaign.
4: Online Brand
Twitter, and social media generally, is a great tool to share your online
content. Companies use it to increase the reach of all sorts of content from
press releases to timely product information. For example weve just had a
series of electric storms in the Netherlands and ING tweeted a link to their
general storm advice, including information regarding insurance.
5: Build a Customer Network
Providing quality help/support, sharing selected information on twitter first,
hosting relevant tweet chats will all build a strong customer network. If you
can build a customer network on twitter they will share your content by re-
tweeting, expanding your reach. They may also answer questions about your
Louise McGregor | changememe.com | CC BY SA
14
Twitter Basics
brand on your behalf, and in times of crisis can help by spreading your crisis
news and reactions.
Some Dos
1. Acquire a twitter handle that matches your brand, usually your brand
name.
2. Use your logo as an avatar, it appears next to each tweet in your
followers feeds
3. Use a brand related image as your header image
4. Specify the hours the account is monitored and responding; note if
youre an airline theres an expectation that this will be 24/7
5. Verify your account; with the official blue tick if you can (this is available
for really famous people or for those with a decent ad spend on twitter).
Link from your twitter account to your company site, and from your
company site to twitter this provides some verification for your
followers if the blue tick isnt an option
6. Choose the right person/people to manage your account, they need to
know twitter but they also need to know your company.
7. Identify who is posting if multiple people manage your account, the
convention for this is ^name or ^initials
8. Set up guidelines for your account including the purpose and tone of
voice, this is especially important if your account is managed by
several people
9. Control sign-on, there have been a number of cases where employees
tweeted from a company account by mistake thinking it was their
personal account. Consider using separate tools or apps to prevent this
happening.
10. Use hashtags carefully there are plenty of examples of hashtags
going wrong.
11. Tweet regularly, daily.
12. Respond and RT.
13. Listen to and understand your followers the more expert they are on
social media the greater the opportunity to interact.
Some Donts
1. Do not hijack a hashtag relating to a humanitarian emergency
2. Do not allow scheduled tweets to run unchecked when a major event
occurs.
3. Do not confuse your personal and professional twitter accounts (they
can often run in the same app).
4. Do not tweet sensitive information.
5. Do not over-react, everything you say is public.
6. Dont use the lawyers as a first response.

For more information see; 9 Examples of Social Media Screw Ups (& 1 genius
response)

Louise McGregor | changememe.com | CC BY SA
15
Twitter Basics
Chapter 5; Trolls, fakers, hackers and scams
The dark side of twitter; how to spot the
fakers and scammers and what to do.
As with any other community on or
offline Twitter has its share of
malevolent members. Some are merely
irritating, some are more distressing and
some pose a danger to your reputation.
In this chapter Im going to talk about
ways to spot some of the fakers, trolls,
hackers and scammers, why they exist,
and what you can do about them (if
anything!)
Fakers
How to spot them
incomplete profile, or random statements (see image below)
women in bikini avatars
profile goes somewhere strange
ratio of followers to following is less
than 1
repeat tweets of the same content
promises to get you more follower
Here are more signs that an account is fake,
and some tools to help you test whether your
followers are fake. Unfortunately the creation
of these accounts is getting smarter, and the
bots behind the accounts have got better at
mimicking human behaviour, even twitter cant
always spot them.
Why they exist
The accounts are most likely spam accounts, if you check the profile and the
tweets all links published connect to the same marketing site.
Its possible to buy followers on Twitter, it goes against the terms and
conditions of using Twitter, but its possible. Theres even a site dedicated to
reviewing the various services on offer.
The services are sold as social media marketing; which makes no sense if
youre building an audience of bots. The other sales rationale is that it boosts
your online credibility. Well, perhaps, temporarily. Companies doing this often
Louise McGregor | changememe.com | CC BY SA
16
Twitter Basics
follow genuine accounts in the hope of follow backs to increase their
credibility.
What to do
Theres no real risk with these accounts, your follower count is higher and if
you follow back your stream has some pointless posts in it. So you can just
ignore the accounts. I dont follow back if an account looks like a spam
account. From time to time I use unfollowers.me to identify any fake accounts
I follow, and then I unfollow them.
Trolls
How to spot them
An internet troll has been defined as an abusive or obnoxious user who uses
shock value to promote arguments and disharmony in online communities.
You can spot them by their consistently mean and abusive comments, and
their failure to back down or apologise when called on it.
Why they exist
A failure of evolution? The online world reflects the offline world, there are
nasty people offline, you can expect them to also be online. Where anonymity
is possible online some trolls use it as a shield to hide behind while they post
abuse. Some platforms and some subjects are more famous for attracting
abusive comments.
What to do
You have five options;
1 Ignore; Trolls thrive on your outrage, if you dont provide it theres a chance
theyll go away.
2 Respond; You can respond, challenging the person. Its unlikely to change
their mind or elicit an apology. Its more like to earn you further abuse and
others may join in, escalating it in round after round of competitive abuse.
3 Block; Twitter offers the option to block users, this means you will no longer
see their content including tweets those which @ your handle.
4 Report; You can also report users to Twitter if you think their behaviour is
abusive or threatening. If you think a threat of violence is credible you should
contact your local police. In the UK this has led to arrest and prosecution.
5 Submit to Public Shaming; collect screenshots of the offending tweets
to Public Shaming. It seems to generate plenty of backlash in its efforts to
name and shame those who troll, or abuse others.
Louise McGregor | changememe.com | CC BY SA
17
Twitter Basics
Hackers
How to spot them
The scary thing is you might not know until its too late, be alert to any strange
activity on your account
including multiple password
resets.
A week or so ago I noticed
two very strange tweets,
supposedly retweets by me,
containing a script which
mentioned tweetdeck.
I checked whether anyone
else had seen this error and
there were already a few
tweets reporting a problem with tweetdeck, including one linking to
a Mashable article. The good thing about sites like Mashable or Techcrunch is
they will report real time on attacks and they have the expertise to analyse the
problem and tell you what to do. At that point they were saying theres been a
hack on tweetdeck and advising users to logout. I did, reverting to using
twitter through the twitter site, where I checked the tweetdeck twitter account.
They were already reporting on the issue.
Why they exist
The hackers want to steal your money, your identity or destroy your
reputation. Alternatively they want to blackmail you. Sometimes they want to
cause damage a the company by stealing data, and you have the bad luck to
hold an account there. Or they could be looking to blackmail a company.
What to do
What you can do comes down to prevention and staying alert.
Prevention; secure your accounts with strong passwords, use different
passwords for each site, and use two factor authentication whenever possible.
Here are more tips to protect yourself (although theres debate on whether
changing your password really does help).
Stay alert; follow the twitter accounts of the tools you use, if you have doubts
check reliable sources such as Mashable, TechCrunch and NakedSecurity. If
you are attacked your actions depend on the attack. In the example I gave
above from tweetdeck the advice was to log out of everything, when returning
Tweetdeck advised a password change.

Louise McGregor | changememe.com | CC BY SA
18
Twitter Basics
Scams
How to spot them
There are the usual scams that promise easy money via work from home
schemes, and there are those connected to phishing scams, there are those
that spread malware.
Theyll often send you a tweet or a direct message with just a link, or theyll
make an outrageous claim in the tweet, someone is spreading rumours about
you was around a couple of years ago.
Why they exist
The people behind them want to steal your money, your identity or destroy
your reputation.
What to do
Dont click on links in messages or DMs that youre uncertain about. Dont fill
in any passwords ever unless the URL of the site in the top bar is what you
expect, so https://twitter.com/ for twitter. There are more suggestions
on protecting yourself here.
As for the hackers stay alert, pay attention to credible warnings, check
Mashable, Techcrunch or NakedSecurity if you have concerns, they usually
find out pretty early about any large attacks going on.
A final word
Ive had a lot of fun using twitter, and Ive connected to some pretty amazing
people. For me its a way to find information and expertise, but theres plenty
of human interaction and humour there as well. I havent covered humour,
parody accounts or memes in this guide but it amazes me how quickly they
appear and how well theyre done.
I use twitter every day, for personal and professional reasons, and wanted to
share what Ive learnt so far. It comes down to this; keep your original purpose
in mind and listen to your customers/followers, dont be scared to try new
things and be prepared to adjust or abandon ideas that didnt work. Finally
share what you learn, thats what makes the twitter world go around.
Tweet me @changememe with your feedback or comments!
Louise McGregor | changememe.com | CC BY SA
19