Follower and Following

To start using Twitter, establish connections to other Twitter users by:

• Following other Twitter users
• Being followed by other Twitter users

Tweet and Re-tweet

Twitter differs from most social networking sites as it enables you to connect with only people who you know. You can communicate with your followers through:

• Tweets: When you post your messages.
• Re-tweets: When you re-post messages that other Twitter users (who you are following) previously posted.

Twitter for Business

Twitter and Google Buzz together has the world’s largest number of micro-bloggers. Unlike Google Buzz microblogging, Twitter is not only a personal microblogging tool and can be used in business:

• Website Traffic Generation
• Marketing and Branding (to market your products/services)
• Customer Communication and Feedback
• Lead Generation and Sales Acquisition
• Market Trend Spotting
• RSS Feeds

Other Tips for Using Twitter

• Newbie’s guide to Twitter – Cnet’s Webware offers a guide to Twitter newbies.
• Twitter for Beginners: 5 Steps for Better Tweeting – Mashable’s post offers the first 5 steps for Twitter beginners.
• 17 Ways You Can Use Twitter: A Guide for Beginners, Marketers and Business Owners – Doshdosh has a quick summary on all the ways you can use Twitter which includes personal branding, getting, feedback, hiring people, direct traffic, reading news, and communicating to customers.
• The Ultimate Beginner’s Guide to Marketing Your Business on Twitter – Remarkablogger explains how you can set up Twitter account for maximum effectiveness, the 3 priorities when using Twitter and the tactics that support the priorities, how you can grow your Twitter Followers and the tools that support the growth, and the Twitter terminologies.
• The Ultimate Guide for Everything Twitter part 1 and part 2 – Web Designer Depot offers basics, glossary, news, applications, history, etiquette to Twitter and tips on how you can get more Twitter followers.
• How to Use Twitter as a Twool – Guy Kawasaki explains how to use Twitter as a marketing tool.
• 5 Twitter Management Tools You Can’t Live Without – Top Rank Blog – Top Rank Blog suggests 5 tools to manage your Twitter activities.
• 3 Ways to Find Tweets Around Any Domain – Search Engine Journal suggests 3 tools to keep track of domain names being mentioned on Twitter.
• How to Create an RSS-Enabled, Micro-Blog with Twitter – Carsonified Blog explains how you can set up your Twitter RSS feed as an alternative to your blogging.
• 35 Twitter Tips from 35 Twitter Users – Problogger offers tips from 35 Twitter users.

• Twitter is a single feature tool which may be too simple.
• Friendfeed may be too complicated to new users on social microblogging.
• Google Buzz may have just enough features to become the right microblogging tool.

Twitter vs Google Buzz (Pros’ Comparisons)

Twitter’s Pros:

• Twitter has built an early lead with an estimated 75 million user base, most of those are technology and media savvy influencers.
• Twitter.com is simple and easy to use, and is a single-purpose site.
• Twitter’s key feature is to allow retweet with one click.
• Twitter has plugins connecting to social networking sites including Facebook and LinkedIn, and blogging platforms like WordPress blogs.
• Bing search engine has a vertical search channel, Bing Twitter, that ranks Twitter’s Tweets.

Google Buzz’s Pros:

• Google Buzz started with an estimated 100 million active Gmail users. If Google can quickly convert Gmail users and Google’s web search users to Google Buzz’s user base, Google will be able to monetize through Adsense / advertising.
• Google Buzz is a light version of Friendfeed, but offers more features than Twitter (Google Buzz for Beginners). Google has a talent pool of engineers who will continue improving and integrating Buzz with Google web search, Chrome, and mobile devices.
• Google Buzz has no characters limitation on any Buzz posts.
• Google Buzz allows geo-location microblogging.
• Google is the search engine that sets the algorithm on how microblogging messages like Buzz/Tweets/Re-Buzz/Retweets are ranked in the search engine results pages.

Twitter vs Google Buzz (Cons’ Comparisons)

Twitter’s Cons:

• Twitter allows a maximum of 140 characters per tweet (or post).
• Twitter’s simple features may have led Twitter to become a status update tool or a commodity, as most Twitter users are only posting “status updates”.
• Twitter’s easy-to-use features can easily be replicated.
• Twitter has started to show slower user growth rates. Large portion of Twitter users are inactive.

Google Buzz’s Cons:

• Google Buzz is a similar to Google Wave which was previously launched by Google and is a confusing tool/service to Google Buzz.
• Google hasn’t had real success developing any killer online social tools including Orkut, Google Friend Connect, and Google Wave.
• Google Buzz is not integrated with Facebook.
• It takes more than 1 click to “re-buzz” someone’s Google Buzz post.
• Google may run into privacy issues by revealing too much user personal information, including showing users’ geo-locations

Google Buzz “How-to” Microblog Tips

Fast Company’s How to Do Everything in Google Buzz offers tips to:

• Connect other services/sites to Google Buzz
• Post Buzz to only certain selected people
• Get the permalink of a specific Buzz
• Send Buzz via @ replies
• Silence frequently updated Buzz posts and turn off Google Buzz
• Use Google Buzz through your Andriod or iPhone devices

AEXT.net provides 12 Undocumented Tricks for Google Buzz to:

• Format your Buzz’s texts (i.e. bold, italic, bold underline, etc)
• Post to Buzz@gmail.com from SMS
• Hide/Remove Google Buzz updates from your Gmail
• Turn off Google Buzz
• Indicate and notify the commenter you’re replying to
• Access Buzz before it is enabled for your account
• Re-Buzz
• Show your geo-locations
• Install Buzz extension for Firefox
• Set up Buzz extensions for Google Chrome
• Search on Buzz
• Add “Buzz it” widget to your blog

ReadWriteWeb offers 5 Google Buzz Tips for the Advanced User to:

• Get Buzz browser extensions
• Hide your Buzz contact list (followers and followings) from public view
• Update Buzz via email
• Subscribe to someone’s Buzz via RSS
• Email, link to, or mute a Buzz post

Push Google’s Buzz to Twitter’s Tweets

How To Bring Your Google Buzz Entries to Twitter from Louis Gray’s Silicon Valley’s Blog offers a way to share items from Google Buzz to Twitter in real time.

Google Buzz for WordPress Blogs

Tricks Daddy shows you how to:

• Manually add “Buzz this” Button to your WordPress blog
• Add “Buzz this” Button using Google Buzz WordPress Plugin

Too Much Google Buzz Microblogging?

If the amount of Buzz microblogged information becomes overwhelmed and starts to annoy you, hide your Google Buzz update count and icon in Gmail, and hide/remove Google Buzz Updates from your Gmail inbox.

Blogoscoped has given 5 Reasons Why Gmail Buzz Privacy Isn’t All That Bad.

However, if Google Buzz is really not a tool for you and you worry about personal information privacy issues, Jessica Dolcourt’s Buzz off: Disabling Google Buzz provides a 3-step procedure to turn off Google Buzz completely:

• Purge your profile
• Block your followers
• Disable Buzz in Gmail

Google Buzz is a new way to share updates, photos, videos and more, and start conversations about the things you find interesting.

Google Buzz is a similar tool to Friendfeed and Twitter.

Start Using Google Buzz

To set up Google Buzz, go to www.google.com/buzz.

• Once you have signed-in with your Gmail account / Google account, you are automatically following the people you have previously emailed and/or mostly chatted with through Gmail.
• You can choose to “unfollow” anyone at any time.
• Create/update your personal information through Google Profiles which will become your “online social profile”.

Start using Google Buzz now.

Upside of Google Buzz

Google Buzz lets you microblog in Gmail environment and allows you to:

• Follow, and/or be followed
• Publish your status updates (posts) to your friends and receive comments right to your Gmail inbox in real-time.
• Post messages in private or public.
• Share links, photos, and videos.
• Import items from Twitter, Flickr, Picasa, and Google Reader.
• Keep your social networking friends’ conversations in one place.
• Automatically weed out useless short messages.
• Do all the above microblogging and sharing from your Andriods or iPhones.

Google Buzz also automatically recommends interesting messages and filters out useless/meaningless messages that you are likely to skip.

Downside of Google Buzz

Google Buzz is built-in to Gmail, so you can manage all your online social activities and microblogging in your Gmail account. The possible issues for Google Buzz to grow the user base:

• It may take time for current active Gmail users to actively microblog through Google Buzz.
• It may take even longer for non-Gmail users to start with Gmail, and then follow you and be followed by you on Google Buzz.

Google Buzz has not yet fully connected to the world’s largest social networking site Facebook or the most popular micro-blogging service Twitter.

• Google Buzz has not yet able to import or export items from Facebook.
• When you post on Google Buzz, your message will not be appear on your Twitter’s Tweets.

Other Google Social Tools

Last year, Google Wave went live, which is a social tool that allows live co-operations in document editing, project idea brainstorming, and file sharing.

Google Friend Connect was also made available to all websites which allows webmasters to build up the “fan” base for their sites.