How to Use Twitter to Save Money and Get Great Coupons

[Barb]

How to Use Twitter to Save Money and Get Great Coupons

First Step-Getting a twitter account started

If you haven’t heard about Twitter yet, WAKE UP. No, just kidding. It is an awesome and addicting way to keep up with your friends, make new ones and find information that you need quickly. I am going to teach you how to use twitter to save money and get some great coupons. Read this through once or twice before you click on the links and start tweeting.

The first thing you need to do is get a twitter account. To sign up click on the Get Started button. Create your free account on the next page. Try to pick a user name that reflects you. Everyone will see this in your tweets. Next, you need to find people to ‘follow’. Hopefully after this you will choose to follow me so I will show you how. Visit my profile page on twitter. Under my avatar is a button to follow me. Click on that. Shortly after you will start to receive my tweets. Don’t worry, if I annoy you, you can unfollow me at anytime with no hard feelings! You can now go to your settings page and upload an avatar and change your design. Congrats on your twitter account! Now lets find you some friends.

There are two easy way to follow more people. First, I suggest that you follow Holly as well. Next take a look at the awesome people who follow me or who I follow. You can add them to your follow list. I am not trying to pimp my friends list (lol, I always wanted to say that) but rather, most people in my little circle are fellow couponers so it is a good place for you to find like minded friends. The second way is to use the twitter search bar at the very top of your page. Type in ‘coupons’ and see who comes up. Add anyone that seems interesting. Remember, you can always unfollow at any time and most people never even notice if you try them out and leave. You can stop here or go on to the next step to get more out of your twitter experience.

[Barb]

How to Use Twitter to Save Money and Get Great Coupons

Step 2-Getting started with Twhirl, Twitters Best Friend

OK, now that you have an account and are following at least one person, it is time to have some fun. To get the most out of twitter, you should use the Twhirl tool. Download Twhirl from the site. If you don’t already have the adobe air program on the computer you will be prompted to install it with Twhirl. You should click yes. Making sure that ‘twitter’ is chosen on the setup screen, enter your twitter account information. Twhirl will now feed all your tweets to this little sidebar that stays open while you are online. If it annoys you, you can shut it off anytime.

[Barb]

Step 3-Sending a Tweet on Twhirl

OK, you should be ready to play with Twhirl yet if you haven't started already. The best way to do this is to show you.

This is what your Twhirl screen will look like. It should float at the bottom right of your screen.




There are a number of buttons here that you can use to communicate with. This is the @ button. You click on this to send a message to that person. Everyone that follows you, or the other person, can read this so be aware that this is not the best way to send a personal message. You can use the @ button to contact anyone on twitter. They do not have to be in your follow or follower list. This is a GREAT way to contact companies. Many big companies have someone who does Twitter for a living. I follow Starbucks, Build-a-Bear and a few others. If I want to quickly tell them what I think, I use the @ button and send it to them. I tell Starbucks all the time to do more coupons These @ messages can reach 1000's of people.



If you have something more personal to say you can send a direct message. This goes only to the intended person. You cannot direct message anyone who does not follow you.



This next arrow is the button you use to shorten a URL (link). Since twitter limits you to 140 characters per tweet, you often need to shorten your link to get it in the space. Coupon links tend to be loooonnnnggg. Click on the button and a box will pop up for you to shorten the url. Don't worry, your link will work just fine shortened. The number under this button tells you how many characters you have left in your tweet.



This last picture shows you the button to click to send your tweet off into cyberspace!



YES, SUCCESS! Now go try it out by sending me a message!

Coming up next in this guide will be teaching you how to filter your messages to narrow in on great deals and use some of those other interesting buttons! Coming as soon as my family lets me have some free time

[clippergirl56]

I just signed up with Twitter and I have no idea what I am doing. I am technilogicaly (sp??) challenged and did not know where to begin other than adding people to follow. Couldn't figure out how to hold a conversation though. Seems there are a couple of ways to tweet twirl is one and I read about another. I will download tonight on my computer.

[skyesmom]

Clippergirl - don't feel bad. I am not technologically chanllenged and Twitter is still kicking my

[Barb]

I just signed up with Twitter and I have no idea what I am doing. I am technilogicaly (sp??) challenged and did not know where to begin other than adding people to follow. Couldn't figure out how to hold a conversation though. Seems there are a couple of ways to tweet twirl is one and I read about another. I will download tonight on my computer.

I think a lot of people use tweetdeck. I have just always used Twhirl.

[Toni-Lynn]

I think Barbs tutorial is very good. What is it you can't figure out? I will try to help. Dawn, I got your message last night but on my cell and have not figured out how to reply yet.

[Barb]

I am going to update this soon with Tweetdeck because I like it better than Twhirl.

[Barb]

This is a great video on how to use tweetdeck. Check it out and don't forget to Tweet me , Holly, or skyesmom!

[Frankie]

How cool. I had no idea you could use Twitter like this. All this time I thought it was just a way to quickly text lots of people and nothing else. I'll be signing up ASAP.