twitter 401 -- sharing pictures on twitter

now that you are really getting into twitter and making some great twitter-friends, you are probably finding times when you want to share pictures with them. there is a very easy way to to this with twitpic.

1. go to twitpic.com and enter your twitter username and password and click on log in
   
2. you will see your twitter avatar and your bio from twitter, click on upload photo in the upper right-hand corner of the website
3. click on browse to browse to the picture on your computer that you want to upload, select the picture and click on open
   
4. add any message that you want to share and click on upload
5. twitpic then sends out a tweet from your account with your message and a link to your picture
6. when your twitter followers click on the link, they can see your picture and if they want, they can log into twitpic and add a comment on your picture
7. if they comment on your picture, the comment is sent out as an @[your twittername] reply to you with a link to the picture as well
   

what is #followfriday?

so, by now you've probably seen all the people on twitter tweeting out with the #followfriday hash tags on fridays and you may be asking yourself, what is this?

well, this is something that was started earlier this year by @micah on twitter as a way to show off his favorite tweeple (read @micah's original blog post on how and why he started it).  mashable also has a good post on this called "follow friday, the anatomy of a twitter trend"

basically all your do is send out a tweet listing your favorite people to follow using their twitter handle (@[twitter username]) and put the #followfriday hashtag in the tweet.  lately, I have enjoyed having a theme to my follow fridays like twittering couples and the people that I met at SXSW.  but most people just put down their favorite people to follow.

some tweeple have started writing blog posts with more information on why the have chosen their #followfriday tweeple, like this one by sonny gill or this list by mashable.  another interesting blog post is brian troy's "follow friday experiment".

and like everything else on twitter, their are tons of sites and apps to help you with #followfriday.  my favorite one is the twitter tag project.  all you have to do is go to the site and enter your twitter username and it will return the friends you should suggest for #followfriday.  I'm not sure how it works, but I think it has to do with who you tweet with most often.  one of the things that I like about it is that you don't have to put your twitter password in, it opens a new twitter window for you to send the tweet out in.

for more cool apps and sites for #followfriday, check out brian cray's blog post

twitter 303 -- tweet-ups

by now, hopefully you are probably really enjoying twitter and all the twitterfriends you are making and you may be looking for opportunities to meet some of them in real life. tweet-ups, meetings between two or more people on twitter, are a great way to do that, there are a couple of ways to find out about tweet-ups in your area:

1. ask your twitterfriends about tweet-ups in your area
2. search google for tweet-ups in your area
3. check out the social media breakfast site for social media breakfasts in your area
4. if you still can't find any tweet-ups in your area, you can always start your own: how to organize a successful tweet-up

twitter 302 -- twitter parties

in addition to the hash tags, one of the other things you have probably noticed on twitter are all the twitter parties. a good example of a twitter party is twitter mom's girls night out (#gno) that I participate in every tuesday night. you sign up on the girls night out website before the party and then you end all your tweets during the party with #gno. they usually have a topic and host and the party can be very fast paced once it gets started.

there are many more twitter parties, in fact, my twitter friend, @ResourcefulMom has created a site, TwitterParties.com, devoted to sharing all the information she has on the various twitter parties, click on her logo on the left to visit the site.

additional blog posts and articles on twitter parties:

• twitter parties and events explained
• how to host a successful twitter party
  
• rock on! the power of twitter parties
• twitterparties and #hashtags
• party on twitter

twittering 2nd graders??

when I talked to my mother earlier this week, she told me about a 2nd grade teacher who was using twitter in her classroom.  my mom of course was blind-sided by this, she barely gets facebook and can not even begin to comprehend twitter.

this immediately made me think of my boys in kindergarten and 2nd grade, while they are both every into what I am doing on-line (twittering, facebooking, and blogging).  it is my kindergartner who is really into it, you can read my blog posts; my social media butterfly and ed and his women on my the water is fine blog to see just how into it he is.

naturally as soon as I got a chance, I googled it and sure enough, a couple of 2nd grade teachers in maine are using twitter for their students to communicate.  after reading the article and looking up the twitter accounts for these teachers (which were both protected), I really started to think out this.

while I can definately see the learning value and the knowledge that the students will gain from this experience, I have some reservations about it.  for the most part, the twitter community is adults (I have found a few teenagers on twitter, but only a few).  my twitter profile is public meaning that anyone on twitter (or on the web for that matter) can see my tweets.  I use discrestion because of that, but there are things that I tweet that I don't think I would want my son or his classmates to read as part of a school assignment.  I am just wondering if there is another fourm or site that would be better suited for this?  what are your thoughts?

twitter wiki

I just found out that there is a twitter fan wiki with lots of great information from around the twitterverse, check it out:
http://twitter.pbwiki.com/

twitter 301 -- hashtags explained

This post has moved: http://digitalmediabutterfly.com/twitter-hashtags-explained/

tweeting couples for #followfriday

on twitter, people tweet out their favorite tweeple (twitter users) on friday with the hashtag #followfriday.  yesterday I thought it would be fun to share the couple that tweet for #followfriday.  once I started this, the couples seemed to come out of the woodwork.  here are the ones that I know of so far:

1. @michaellbrown and @carynbrown 
2. @scotters and @HSDistractions
   
3. @complicatedmama and @mrcomplicated
4. @rockson and @mrsrockson
5. @andreacook and @cookp
6. @worshipcity and @mrsworshipcity
   
7. @youngmommy and @RCYoung87 
8. @sashanicole  and @jrsmith1279
9. @surveysmith and @astrogirl426
10. @craigteich and @jennyred
    

please feel free to comment and add your twitter names if you are a tweeting couple

twitter 202 -- how to find people to follow on twitter

now that your twitter account is all set up, and you know who you want to follow on twitter, all you have to do is find some tweeple (twitter people) to follow. here is how I find other tweeple:

1. first, you can follow me, carynbrown (send me an @carynbrown tweet saying you are reading my "it's all geek to me" blog and I will follow you back)
2. follow back the people that follow you
3. look at the tweeple who your twitter friends are talking to and re-tweeting (remember you can click on the @[twitter username] to open up their twitter homepage)
4. go to the twittersearch page and put in things that you are interested in (i.e. knitting) to find other people tweeting about the same topics
5. when you are reading an article or a blog that you like, check to see if they have a link to their twitter page in the sidebar or at the bottom of the article
6. use twittergrader:
   follow twittergrader on twitter
   then go to the twitter grader webpage enter your twitter user name and click on "grade" to let them grade you
   they will suggest users for you to follow
   you can also click on "twitter elite" in the upper right-hand corner and search for people that are the top twitters
7. follow mrtweet on twitter, after following him for a week or so, he will send you a DM (direct message) on twitter with a link to a list of people to follow, you can go to the mr. tweet website for more information

other twitter search sites (I have not used these yet)

• who should I follow
• twitter local
• just tweet it

as usual, here are some links to other blog posts and articles on how to find people to follow on twitter:

• find new people to follow on twitter with twubble
• felicia day -- finding people to follow on twitter
• creative wisdom -- how to find people to follow on twitter
• tech life web -- how do I find people to follow on twitter
• social fishing -- 9 ways to find people to follow on twitter
• seo and tech daily -- how to find people to follow on twitter
• mashable -- the twitter followholic