Official Blog of the Tophatter Auction House
It doesn’t matter if you’re a seasoned tweeter or just getting your toes wet in the world of social media, everyone could use a review of some Twitter basics! Never again shall you say, “I don’t know this Twitter stuff!” This post was inspired by not only my Mom, who really doesn’t quite “get it” yet, but also my twenty-something roommate who has just started tweeting. It goes to show that at any age, you’ll have the opportunity to learn new & exciting things!
Twitter Vocabulary
Follow: people can “follow” each other on Twitter. Each Twitter profile has a “Follow” button; if you click it, you’ll receive that person’s tweets in your newsfeed, which is located on your homepage.
Newsfeed: a central location to read all of the tweets from people you follow.
Mention: when someone mentions you on Twitter, it means they tag your Twitter handle (name) with the ‘@’ sign. For example: “Hey @Tophatter, Wendell is pretty good looking! Can I have his number?” If someone tags your profile, the tweet will show up in your Interactions on your Connect page & you’ll receive a notification any time someone mentions you.
Retweet: if someone posts content that you think is fantastic and you want to share it with your followers as well, you can click the “Retweet” button. This shares the same information to your followers, while still giving credit to the original person who tweeted it.
Hashtag: hashtags are a great way to organize content or jump into conversations and/or trending topics (more on this to come). You can add a hashtag by putting ‘#’ in front of it. For example: “I just bought an amazing necklace on @Tophatter! #happybidding” The #happybidding is a topic we run weekly on Twitter; people can tweet any type of experiences they have on Tophatter and add that hashtag. How does the hashtag work in conversations? It’s a way to organize all tweets that are about one particular topic, even if you aren’t following everyone who is joining the conversation. There are services that aggregate content around hashtags so you can receive a live-stream of tweets happening in the moment about that particular subject. Other popular hashtags: #ThrowbackThursdays - sharing a fun and old picture; #FollowFriday (#FF) - sharing other Twitter personalities and recommending your followers to follow them too.
Trending Topics: these topics are monitored by Twitter. Twitter then posts the topics that are most popular and widely talked about (in real-time) on the left rail of the newsfeed page. You can change your settings to view Worldwide topics or topics specific to your city.
Lists: you can create lists of people on Twitter. Lists can be made for any reason and when you click a list, you will only see tweets from people on that list. For example, Tophatter has a Bloggers list where we follow influential bloggers on all different topics, from handmade to cooking to weddings and more!
The Anatomy of a Tweet
To compose a tweet, you can do so by clicking the blue square button (with the quill) on the top right corner.
- To create a tweet to a particular person, you start the tweet with their handle. Example tweet to Tophatter: @Tophatter, I love bidding!
- To reply a tweet, you can click the reply button at the bottom of the tweet, and Twitter will automatically put the person’s handle at the beginning of the tweet. Note that tweets directed to one person do no show up in other people’s newsfeeds unless they follow both you and the person you are tweeting.
- If you want to create your own tweet with content, click the compose button and type away! Your followers will see your tweet in their newsfeed.
- If you’re marketing something and you want your followers to take action on your tweet, tell them exactly that! Explicitly tell them what to do. For example: “To enter this contest, click here: http://top.ht/aK!” or “For a chance to win, enter our promotion here: http://top.ht/aK!” or “Stunning items up for #auction! To join our Supplies auction today, click here [link]!”
- Add an image if you’d like - you can click the camera icon when you’re composing a tweet.
- Remember: you have 140 characters to tell your story. Be concise and be witty!
Promoting an Item or Auction
If you’re using Twitter as part of your marketing strategy, here are a couple of best practices to follow:
- Twitter is best for real-time. Post consistently and often. Unlike Facebook where posts flood a feed, your tweets won’t overrun your followers’ feeds.
- Tweet when your auction room opens - whether your selling an item or hosting an auction.
- Tweet a few minutes before an item goes up on the block - engage a potential bidder at a key moment.
- Tweet exciting events during your auction, as if you’re live-broadcasting it! Maybe your followers wanted to attend your auction, but couldn’t make it. At least this way they can see the excitement & remember to join you next time.
- Just keep tweeting!
Helpful Tools
We can’t always be composing tweets throughout the day, but we have so much important content we want to share! So, how do we do everything at once?
Simple. Helpful tools!
Checkout free services such as…
- Hootsuite: you can sign up for a free account. Hootsuite is a great way to schedule tweets ahead of time, organize feeds, create custom search feeds (for example, if you wanted to follow all tweets with the hashtag #auction, all in one place). You can access Hootsuite from anywhere on the web.
- TweetDeck: free to download. TweetDeck is an app that you can use on your computer. You can schedule tweets, just like Hootsuite, create feeds for particular lists, create search feeds and more! TweetDeck is owned by Twitter, so it’s fully integrated with their platform.
- TweetChat: free to use website where you can follow any real-time discussions around any hashtag (as mentioned above). Great way to get involved in conversations!
Have any questions about Twitter? Ask them in the comments below!
Brought to you by Megan.
