Twitter tips and tricks

I first wrote a Twitter 101 back in December 2007 and then followed it up with a review of 3 Twitter clients. Today, I'm gonna compile a list of Twitter tips and tricks I've learned or gathered over the months. Hope you'll (either Twitter user or not) find it useful.

I don't want to open a Twitter account, but I still want to stalk follow you.

1. You're in luck! you actually don't need to open a Twitter account to do this.
   
2. You can simply subscribe to the any Twitter user's RSS feed, if their profile is public (not private).
   
3. Go to user's Twitter account (e.g. http://www.twitter.com/ThomasHan). On the bottom of the page, you'll see a "RSS" link (i.e. here's my http://twitter.com/statuses/user_timeline/3584991.rss).
   
4. You can subscribe to it using any reader (e.g. Google Reader, My Yahoo portal page, even in Gmail, etc.)

I have Twitter account (cool!) and I'm high-roller with unlimited SMS (jealous!).

1. Log into your Twitter account and go to the http://twitter.com/devices page to configure your mobile phone.
   
2. Once you have your mobile phone setup, you can also configure sleep time by going to http://twitter.com/account/notifications. You can tell Twitter to turn off SMS during a period of time (e.g. turn off during 9PM to 8AM)
   
3. Find the user you want to follow (you know how to do that already, right?).
   
4. In addition to follow someone, you'll have to turn "notification on" for them. There are 2 ways to do this.
   
5. Method #1 is to go to user's profile, where you followed them and you'll see the radio button to toggle On/Off notification.
   
6. Method #2 is to go to your own profile, click on the "Following" link. This will take you to http://twitter.com/friends. From there, you can individually toggle the Notification On/Off radio buttons.

I have Twitter account, but I'm too poor to have SMS, any other options?

1. Yes, if you use Gtalk.
   
2. Log into your Twitter account and go to http://twitter.com/devices page to configure your Instant Messenger, follow the instructions Twitter provides you.
3. Once you have twitter@twitter.com setup as a contact on Gtalk, you can interact with Twitter by sending tweets, sending "on" (to turn on device), sending "off", sending "help", etc.
4. Whenever you're logged into your Gtalk, Twitter will send tweets to your IM for users who you have notifications turned on.
   

I'm nosy and would like to keep tabs on certain topics or keywords, how do I do that?

1. You can use Twitter's build-in 'track' feature.
2. By tracking a certain keyword, Twitter will notify you immediately via SMS or IM (not via the web) whenever someones' tweets contains that keyword, regardless if you follow them or not.
3. You can track keywords in 3 ways. They all accomplish the same thing, you can send them via the web (like you tweet), via SMS or via IM.
   
4. Start tracking a keyword by sending in "track Cupertino", "track Purdue", etc.
5. Stop tracking by sending in "untrack Cupertino", etc.
6. Check what words you are tracking by sending in "tracks" and Twitter will reply you back with the list of words you are currently tracking.

So I've missed people mentioning my name via the @username several times, any tips on that?

1. Most of you know that you can go to your "Replies" tab at http://twitter.com/replies to see when others start their tweets with @username (e.g. @ThomasHan how are you?). But one of the most common problem is if people mention your username in the middle of the tweet, Twitter won't pick those up and show them in the Replies tab.
2. I have several solutions for this.
3. Solution #1: You can use the track feature (see above) to track @yourusername. The only drawback to this is that you'll only get notified during the time you have SMS or IM turned on.
4. Solution #2: You can use a 3rd party site TerraMinds.com, there are probably others, but this is the one I use and it's been pretty good. Using this site, you can search for your own username, the site will return a list of tweets with your username anywhere in the tweet. And guess what TerraMinds offer? You guess it! RSS! You can then subscribe to the rss yourself in any reader of your choice and never miss anyone mentioning your username again. Here's an example of searching for my own username, @thomashan.
   
   Added on Feb 26 2008: In addition to TerraMinds, another 3rd party site you can try is TweetScan.com. They also offer RSS. Again, an example of searching for @thomashan.
   

I'm tired of updating Facebook *and* Twitter both, how do you update your FB status with Twitter?

1. This is the Twitter on FB app that I use http://apps.facebook.com/twitter/.

Can I send an email to some special (secret) email address to update my Twitter?

1. Yup, I use http://twittermail.com/.

How can I tell if the person I'm following is also following me back?

1. There are two ways that I know of.
2. Method #1 is via Twitter's "Following" and "Followers" page. From the Following (people you are following) page, if you see a "message | nudge" under the username, then you know that person is also following you back. "message" link just means that you can direct message (DM) them.
   
   See example screenshot below, @mdy and @ijustine are following me back, but @BobbyAnderson is not, thus I don't see the "message|nudge" link.
   
   
   As for the "Followers" page, it's more obvious. Right under each user, if you see a "follow" button that means you're not currently following that person and you can simply click on it to follow back.
   
   
3. Method #2 is via @dossy's Flash Twitter Karma app. It's a puuurty UI with green/red arrows showing you which ways the love flows. See a sample screen shot below for my account.
   
   
   

So that's all I can think of now. If you have other questions or need more tips, head on over to Twitter Forum at GetSatisfactory where I actively monitor and answer questions, see my profile there.

Happy Twittering...