Twitter has become a very popular thing among (primarily English speaking) wine aficionados and wine professionals, journalists, writers and other. At the same time it is almost impossible to understand what the point is of Twitter – unless you try it. Here’s a short introduction to wine tweeting that will get you started in this new way of sharing things on wine.
What is Twitter
Twitter is what used to be called micro-blogging. Today it is usually just “twitter”, one of the most popular kinds of social media or social networking.
Twitter allows you, if you have a Twitter account, to publish Tweets, snippets of text of a maximum of 140 characters. The tweets appear on your “profile”, or Twitter home page (e.g. https://twitter.com/bkwineper for me).
In some ways it is like text messaging (SMS) on a phone, in that it is short and you can address it to a specific person. But tweets are (typically) public, visible to all.
If you have not used twitter (and maybe also if you have) it may be a mystery why there would be any point to all this. There are today probably close to 400 million (yes, apparently so!) twitter users, so there must be some point to it…
Why use twitter
Everyone has his own reason to use twitter and his own way of tweeting. Here are some ways that twitter is used:
- Sharing interesting links and interesting pieces of information
- Online conversation with friends
- Commenting on things: other peoples tweets, world news, things you like or unlike
- Getting in contact with other people who have the same interests as you
- Sharing photos
- etc, etc
Personally I was very skeptical initially. But today I can truthfully say that it has had some really concrete and productive results. One is that thanks to twitter I have come in contact with people, both online and in real life that I would not have met otherwise. It is also a great way of sharing information.
Here are some things I tweet about:
- New blog posts and articles on our sites
- Links to interesting or fun articles I find online
- Sharing quick information with twitter friends
- Mentioning good wines I taste
- Talk about travel
- When in conferences sharing what the speaker says with “the world”
- and much more
Three easy steps to start on twitter
What should you then do if you want to see what it is all about? The first thing to say is perhaps that you do not need to write anything yourself. You can be part of Twitter and just read what other tweet about. Here’s how to start:
1. Sign up for a twitter account: https://twitter.com
Choose a good twitter name: preferably short, easy to remember and easy to write. Preferably a name that relates to a person. Personally I dislike obscure or anonymous twitter names, so I recommend something that is at least a bit personal
2. “Follow” a few people
Start with following a few tweeps, twitter people (from “peeps”?), that you think might be interesting to “follow” by clicking on the Follow button. When you follow someone that person’s tweets will show up in the time line on your Twitter home page, so you can easily see what those you follow tweets about. This is the key function of twitter.
You can see your own tweets under the tab “profile”. People who follow you will see your tweets in their timeline.
3. Install a twitter reader tool, like TweetDeck
See more on this below.
Follow and unfollow
Follow people you are interested in: wine people, writers, friends, comedians, celebrities or even me (https://twitter.com/bkwineper).
Here are some lists to start you on your way in wine:
- 12 Must Follow Wine People on Twitter https://www.twitip.com/12-must-follow-wine-people-on-twitter/
- Top 100 Wine Tweeters from alawine , https://twitter.com/#!/alawine/top-100-wine-tweeters/members
- Top 10 Wine Experts on Twitter from MyMediaNotes (which includes @bkwineper!) https://www.mymediainfo.com/mymedianotes/2011/sep/MyMediaInfos-Top-10-Wine-Experts-on-Twitter-sep2011nc.html
You can easily Unfollow anyone whenever you like.
Tomorrow, in part two of this article, you can read about more useful tips and tricks on twitter: addressing, retweeting, lists, tools and much more.
Read the second part here: Wine tweeting 2: More useful tips on Twitter.
So, what do you think about wine twittering? Going to get started? Or perhaps you have some of your own experiences to share? Write a comment!
6 Responses
Hello, thanks for these informations!
But…Why ducks at the end ;-?
Cheers,
Egmont
Not obvious to find a good illustration to such a subject, so with a bit of imagination and:
https://www.thefreedictionary.com/twitter
Twitter = “The light chirping sound made by certain birds.”
OK, probably not the kind of sound duck make.
Really useful article, thank you, Per. Hope you’ll go on : more tips, etiquette, useful links, other social media, no end to it! But by the way, owls go whoo whoo and ducks go quack quack
Thanks Caryl. In part two (link above at the end of the article) is more on tips and useful tools.