OK, you’ve decided you need a Twitter presence. What do you need to know before you get started?

First, some explanations of basic Twitter concepts.

• A tweet is a 140-character update. Similar to a Facebook status if you’re familiar with Facebook. Why 140 characters? When Twitter was originally developed, that number was chosen for compatibility with mobile phone text messaging.
• To use Twitter, you’ll have to find people to follow. Follow just means that their updates will appear on your Twitter page. Every time they post an update you’ll see it. If they follow you back, they’ll see your updates as well.

Here’s an important difference between Twitter and Facebook: Facebook must be mutual; that is, for someone to be your friend and see your updates, you must agree to the relationship. Not so on Twitter. Anyone can follow you unless you block them (which we’ll cover in a bit). Conversely, you can follow people who do not follow you. It’s also worth noting that your updates are public unless you protect your tweets, which you really don’t want to do. Here’s why. (link)

• If you want to say something privately to someone you follow on Twitter, if they follow you, you can send a direct message, usually just called a DM. This is like a text message or private email in that only they will see it. You can only send a DM to someone who is following you.
• The stream is the list of tweets from all of the people you follow. It appears on your home page, with the newest tweets at the top.
• As you read through the stream, you’ll often see words preceeded by hashtags (#). Hashtags are a way to categorize tweets, to make them searchable. You can do a hashtag search on Twitter to see all tweets about a certain topic. For example, most conferences have an official hashtag. Attendees who tweet about the conference use that hashtag and their tweets are easily searchable and update in real time, or as they are posted.
• As you read through your stream, it’s likely that you’ll see tweets that you want to save for future reference. You can do this by making it a favorite. Later you can review the tweets you’ve favorited and you can read the favorite tweets of others.
• If you see a tweet that you really like and agree with, you can retweet. This is a bit like forwarding an email; you still recognize the original tweeter but you send it to your own followers as well. Most people add a character after the tweet to separate it and add a short thought of their own.
• Search is a powerful facet of Twitter; you can search for a desired topic, save the search and check for updates each time you log in. For example, I have a saved search for the words Memphis and church, which allows me to gather all the tweets that mention Memphis and church in the same tweet. This lets me listen to what people are saying about church in Memphis.
• Lists are a relatively new feature. They let you categorize people you follow into groups; for example, I have a group of local people I call peeps. That separates personal friends from tweets from a software company I follow. I can make my lists public, so others can discover and follow them, or keep them private.

Next we’ll get started with the actual tweeting, which is where the fun begins.

Should our small business/church/ministry/nonprofit tweet? Why?

You might think …
It’s stupid. How does what I had for lunch today enhance my business or ministry?

Why would anyone want to know what I had for lunch?

The answer to the last question is, they probably don’t. Or maybe they do …

Consider a typical day in the office. Do you ever stop for a brief chat with a co-worker in the hall? Talk about the latest cute thing their grandchild did, the local college basketball team or … maybe even what they had for lunch? If you’ve ever had one of these conversations, you’ve done the IRL (in real life) version of Twitter. We all have these moments — they are not by design strictly task-oriented, but that doesn’t mean they lack value. The spark for many a relationship is ignited in the small talk where persons discover common interests. Twitter is no different.

So how do I use it?

Imagine yourself at a cocktail party. Have you ever been the person penned into a corner by a boor who prattles endlessly about him/herself and will not stop talking? What is the boor trying to accomplish? He’s trying to be heard. She has a message to get out, a story to tell or something she wants you to buy. So next thing you know, you’re backed into a corner, forced to listen to every detail of something you have no interest in, while the motormouth shows no interest in you.

Don’t be the motormouth. Like real-life relationships, it’s about interaction.
The two-way kind. Begin by listening. Monitoring. Do a hashtag search for your name and see what people are saying. Listen before you leap.

After you’ve listened for a while, jump in. First, contribute. Offer something. Information, a helpful link or just retweet and recognize someone else.

But — jump in the right way. If you’re a Seinfeld fan, you know the term level jumping. Don’t be a level jumper. If you’re not acquainted with Jerry, Elaine, George and Kramer, look at it this way: You don’t meet someone, shake their hand, then ask them to help you move. It takes a long-term buildup of trust and relationship before you’re to that level of friendship.

Like the cocktail party, you may spend a few minutes (or 140 characters) making a contact that will be mutually beneficial in the long run. Or you may exchange an @ reply or two and move on. Take the time to build the trust before you ask for the order. It’s worth it to forge new relationships built on trust.

I just finished my presentation at Connection2010 conference in Orlando, Florida. We had some great discussion and I was quite impressed with the audience and how open they are to using these tools for ministry.

This 2009 conversation:

Me: Are you on foursquare?
IRL* friend: Huh?

Reminds me of this 2007 conversation:

Me: Do you tweet?
IRL friend: Huh?

Is foursquare the next Twitter? Prominent technology blogger Robert Scoble says, via CNN, “Go back three years ago. Twitter was being used by the same crowd that is playing with Foursquare today.” According to social media blog Mashable, “Foursquare’s very much in the same boat as Twitter was two years ago.”

I agree. When I started tweeting in June 2007, no one knew enough about Twitter to disparage the service for bathroom or lunch tweets. Recently as an experiment, I’ve asked a few people I know about foursquare, with the same results. Blank stares. Questioning looks. And it annoys and embarrasses my children, which I think is a sure sign it’s the next big thing.

Las Tortugas in Germantown gets some well-deserved buzz

Check out the foursquare Web site to see more, but it’s a win for businesses and a fun diversion for ordinary folk. It’s currently only available for iPhone, but a BlackBerry version is reportedly coming soon.

Fun Factor

• Frequent a place and you’ll become the mayor. There are already many places in some of the larger cities that offer freebies to the mayor. Just prove it by showing your smartphone and you’ll get a free drink, appetizer or other perk.
• The competition — there’s a leader board for each city that shows you who has accumulated the most points. Points are accumulated by sharing tips, to-dos, and checking in at different locations around town.
• Learn more about your city and your friends, as you discover new places and things to do. Twitter and Facebook integration lets you share with as many or as few of my friends as you desire.

Biz Win Column

• The mayor can be unseated by a more faithful customer, which keeps people vying for the coveted spot. (Well, geeks covet it, ok?) Patrons update from a favorite hangout and their friends join them and buy more food/drinks/merchandise.
• As more tips and to-dos are added, it becomes a local recommendation site for businesses and attractions that can create buzz and lead people to try new things and places. There is a details tab that links to a map and to the Yelp entry for that establishment.
• Gain new new customers with no financial investment; powerful user-generated content increases credibility and visibility.

Overall Potential Coolness

• Travel to other cities and find popular places only the locals know about
• You are really cool in geek circles, at least until Oprah catches on
• The all-important freebies

Caveats

My badges so far — I'm working on it!

• Be careful who you accept friend requests from. I’ve only become friends with people I know in real life or have known online long enough to be comfortable with sharing my whereabouts.
• Don’t autopost everything — I have set my account to tweet when I earn a badge or become the mayor, not to pull each and every update.

OK, the Challenge:

Who will be the first Memphis establishment to offer a freebie to the Mayor?