No Parent Left Behind

By Mark Schreiber

I always wanted to be a Rock Star. Play lots of loud music, stay in the penthouse suite, and play cloak & dagger (minus the dagger) with the Paparazzi. Well now with the help of “Mr. Technology” you can at least Twitter like one…

Twitter?! What the heck is Twitter?! And why do I “Need” it (emphasis added)!? Well, the simple truth is… you don’t. Unless you are a Rock star, Movie Star, or other well known Celeb. But hey, it’s always fun to pretend. So, let me roll out the red carpet for you and explain ins and outs of Twitter… soon you’ll be on your way to fame.

Twitter, pronounce TWIT-ER…I’ve always wanted to do that.

Anyway, Twitter is just a little “micro-blogging” program that lets you tell the world, or at least anyone that is listening, what you are doing right at this… I mean this… no, (wait for it….) this moment. You get the point. So, let’s say you are at work on a break and you meet Bob at the water cooler, he once again is in serious need of fashion advice. You could type in: “{Twitter User Name} Is wondering if velour is coming back into style.” and send it via your twitter account or other on-line ways that we’ll talk about later. Now, 20 minutes later you go to lunch, love the food and from your mobile phone you text a message up to your Twitter account that says, “Billy’s grill on 10^th & Adams is AMAZING”.

Basically you continue to update the people that are listening to your feed all throughout the day. And because you are pretending to be a rock star they are, of course, enthralled!

So, let’s get your Twitter on… or at least you on Twitter.

To get setup do the following:

1. Go to http://twitter.com/
2. Click “Get Started—Join!
3. Fill in your email (your spam email please) Don’t know what a spam email address is? Check out the FAQ or watch the NPLB video.
4. Enter the CAPTCHA word, and then log in!
5. Now you get to start your Twitter.
6. Type in what you are doing and then play around with finding people to follow your twitter feed. (like me! I “need” a following).

Now it’s up to you to develop your rock star image, find your friends (use Find People tab), and make a name for yourself on the twitter community.

Last Links

My Fav! Great, short, easy to understand free video about Twitter from our friends at Common Craft.

Find the Twitter website here.

An informative, yet rather dry, further explanation of Twitter uses from various devices.

Follow me, once you register of course.