This guest post was written by Jonathan Benz with ProspectMX
See Jonathan’s Introduction to Twitter

You’ve Registered For Twitter… Now What?

So you got started using Twitter – great! The first step in testing something is getting started, right? After having received some feedback from those of you who have registered for Twitter since my first post, I wanted to take a second and breakdown some of the most basic questions I received from BRER readers.

Now you’re registered… then what? First, introduce yourself to the Twitter world. Everything you write on Twitter is published on a public timeline where anyone on Twitter can read your message. So, in 140 characters, start your Twitter experience by answering the question “what are you doing?”

Finding Friends on Twitter

Finding friends on Twitter seems to be one of the most difficult things in the world when you first start. Like most social networking and social media sites, you can find friends who are also users by having Twitter scan your address book on e-mail hosts like Yahoo!, Gmail, and Hotmail.

Another great way to go about deciding who to follow and talk to on Twitter is to add your favorite bloggers to the list of people you follow. Many bloggers have a link on their blog pointing to their Twitterstream.

In the real estate industry, there are a select list of users that are “must follows.” These are the Twitter-users with a focus on the real estate industry who best understand the benefits of the service. They also have 1000’s of followers, so they are the industry thought leaders. Five of my personal favorite Twitter users in the RE.net are listed below. I personally follow all of them (along with 1000’s of others).

• @ResPres (Jeff Turner of RealEstateShows.com)
• @RealEstateZebra (Daniel Rothamel of Strong Team Realtors – Charlottesville, VA)
• @LaniAR (Lani Rosales, New Media Director of AgentGenius.com)
• @PhoenixREGuy (Jay Thompson of PhoenixRealEstateGuy.com)
• @pkitano (Pat Kitano of MediaTransparent.com)

Many of these bloggers and real estate professionals have a tendency to follow everyone that follows them. This will open up the conversation between you and the other Twitter users. Once someone follows you, they will be able to see what you say, just like you are able to see what they say once you start following them.

Sending Twitter Messages

When you want to send a message directly to someone, use that trusty “@” symbol. This is Twitter’s way of indicating that a message you send across the network is intended to be a response to someone.

For example, Jeff Turner saw a Twitter message I posted about an ABA basketball team in Bluefield, WV last week. He wanted to respond to me directly, but still on the public timeline for everyone of his followers to see. Therefore, before he typed his message, he placed the short code “@gmhv_bentz” in front of it, to insure that everyone knew he was speaking to me.

In addition to sending direct messages to someone on the public timeline, you can also send a private message across Twitter – simply type a “d” in front of the name of the Twitter user you want to contact. In the example above, if Jeff Turner wanted to send me a private Twitter message about that basketball team, he would have typed “d gmhv_bentz” before his message.

Jonathan Bentz is a link building expert and social media geek for ProspectMX, a Pennsylvania internet marketing company. Previously, Bentz worked in marketing at a luxury resort located in Western Pennsylvania and managed their website to a substantial increase in site visits and online bookings.  He has experience in e-mail marketing, organic search optimization, moderating message boards, and developing site content plans for a variety of web clients.