Community Voices for Health

By: Jessica DiRamio

Do you tweet?  If not, then let’s make it a second half of 2012 resolution!  I promise you won’t be disappointed!  As much as love Facebook, I have a fascination with Twitter and how immediate, up-close, and personal the site allows people to be with each other.  Want to give feedback to a famous appliance about the new stove you purchased?  Tweet to them; they will respond!  Love a certain celebrity who just had a baby?  Tweet to her; she might just respond, too!  Want a way to interact people who you’d normally not have access to?  Tweet, tweet!  It totally works.

Twitter can be a little intimidating to the novice.  The more you use it, the better you’ll become at the ins and outs of Twitter.  Here’s a little guide to get started:

• What to Tweet:  Anything!  Yup, that’s right.  Tweet about anything and everything.  Keep it to 140 characters and tweet away.  Think about your tweets as mini Facebook status updates.
• When to Tweet:  As much or as little as you want.  Once a day is OK.  Fifty times a day is OK, too.  There are no rules surrounding this.  This is very much unlike Facebook where an hourly status update will cause your friends to block you.
• How to Tweet:  Keep the tweet to less than 140 characters.  Use the “@” sign to tag a follower, use the “#” sign in front of some of the words to create a searchable key word so that other people on Twitter can find your tweets.
• Why Tweet:  Why not?  I tweet to feel a little less disconnected with the outside adult world.  After the kids go to bed, I log into Twitter and just see what’s going on.  It’s fun.

Hopefully that little guide gives you enough information to get started on Twitter.  Set up an account and find me!  I am @jessicadiramio!   Tweet you later!!