Subscribe Feed (RSS)7 Twitter Tips For College Students
November 24th, 2009 by Matthew C. Keegan | Filed under Fun News.When it comes to social media sites, Facebook rules. Founded in 2004 by a Harvard University student, the mega media site now boasts more than 300 million users worldwide, exceeding the population of the United States and on track to consume the entire world within, oh, the next seven years.
Just kidding. Sort of.
While Facebook remains the top choice for most college students, Twitter is beginning to catch on with the academic crowd, a proven way to send out short, quick updates while following the latest trends. Someday, Twitter could be incorporated with Facebook as it is now with LinkedIn, but until then you will need to maintain separate accounts to make both sites work for you.
As a college student, you may be asking yourself – how can you make Twitter work for you? That’s easy, especially if you consider incorporating the following seven tips as you set out to explore and expand your Twitter presence.
1. Customize Profile – Let people know who you are by filling out your complete Twitter profile. For this section, you get 160 characters to express yourself, 20 more than the tweet limit. Upload your photo, offer a link to your web presence (ie – blog, web page, MySpace page, or whatever) and add a background picture that reflects what you’re about.
2. Shorten URLs – Web addresses are too long for Twitter, taking up a significant portion of your 140 character allotment. Bit.ly, Su.pr, and other web address trimmers allow you to shorten your URL significantly, saving you space and allowing you to say more with each tweet.
3. Find Friends – Do you want to find friends on Twitter? That’s easy by typing what you’re looking for on the Twitter toolbar. That means if you are a Yale student, you can type that word in and find students, faculty, and alumni whose names will appear in the results. Follow everyone or check out their profiles and choose only those who interest you.
4. Share Photos – Though you can’t share photos directly through your Twitter interface, you can do likewise with TwitPic and link to your photo from Twitter. What a great way to extend Twitter, by tweeting your favorite campus shot to your followers.
5. Desktop Client – Not everyone tweets from the Twitter interface as Twitter allows “desktop clients” to do the work for them if they prefer. TweetDeck, for example makes sharing photos, trimming URLs, and composing updates easier. Besides, it is also integrated with Facebook and MySpace, putting all of your favorite social media sites together on one platform. Twhirl, Tweetie, Twitterrefic and, yes, TwitPic are among the other Twitter clients available.
6. Make Money – If you have a fairly extensive Twitter following and you use Twitter regularly, then you can make money off of Twitter by allowing companies to tweet an occasional advertisement here or there. You control the ads that will get tweeted by Ad.ly, SponsoredTweets.com, and TwittAd.com among others. And you thought that you had to flip pizza to make some spare money when not in class!
7. Mass Updates – Of course, the best reason for using Twitter is to stay in touch with people. You can mass update all of your followers by sharing important news about yourself including your arrival home for holiday break.
Twitter’s place in the social media universe isn’t assured, but it is compressing how people communicate. Like any social media tool, what you put into it will impact the way that others perceive you, so use it cautiously to build a rich reputation and strong following.
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Tags: Facebook, MySpace, social media, Tweet Deck, TwitPic, Twitter
I am extremely disappointed by the amount of re-tweets this article has received. Are people just blindly re-tweeting things with catchy titles?
To say a benefit of Twitter is that “you can make money off of Twitter by allowing companies to tweet an occasional advertisement here or there.” is ridiculous. Portraying Twitter as a “get rich fast scheme” is outrageous.
In addition, the tone in which this article was written was extremely condescending to college students and I don’t believe that a substantial benefit is that “You can mass update all of your followers by sharing important news about yourself including your arrival home for holiday break.”
This article needs to address some of the real benefits of Twitter such as real time news and networking opportunities.
As a college student with an active presence on Twitter, I am extremely offended by this article.
http://www.twitter.com/arianna
Arianna O’Dell´s last undefined ..If you register your site for free at
For a really cool photo sharing app try out http://www.tweetphoto.com as it is integrated to many services such as tweetdeck, ubertwitter and an iphone app well.
Arianna, thank you for taking the time to comment. However, let me set some points straight because you are implying certain things that I have never said.
First of all, in no way have I indicated that Twitter is a get rich scheme. Those are your words. Period. What I am saying is that you can “make some spare money while not in class.” You extended that thought by saying I was telling college students that they can create vast amounts of wealth. Uh, no.
Second of all, it isn’t condescending to anyone using Twitter to remind them that they can keep people updated about their comings and goings. That’s what Twitter is all about. Because this website is geared toward informing college students (you may want to read the other 650+ posts for your understanding), Twitter and other social media tools certainly do have a place of importance for them.
As far as real time news and networking opportunities go, I’ll let you cover that on your own site. No offense given, so no offense should be taken.
I have a bit of an issue with this article, too, but I’ll try to address it with some more constructive feedback.
I get a feeling that this article is sort of condescending as well. There’s little here that most Twitter users don’t already know. A topic of actual value for college students would be more along the lines of personal branding. A recent college grad and current business-owner, speak on the topic for local colleges and universities.
I’d love to guest post on the topic. Let me know if you’re open to it.
RL
Hi Rob, thank you for your comment and your feedback.
You said, “There’s little here that most Twitter users don’t already know.” Well, I agree. But, the article isn’t aimed at active Twitter users primarily, rather at students who may not use Twitter at all. Facebook is the proven leader with college students while, as a U.S. News & World Report article noted, it isn’t as popular as Facebook and MySpace.
As far as personal branding, especially for college seniors and new grads, I agree Twitter can be very useful to help people market who they are. I plan on covering that angle in an upcoming article discussing LinkedIn, FaceBook, and other social media tools for new grads and jobseekers; which may be something you’d be willing to share with our readers in an interview.
I’d be 100% open to it. You’ve got my email address; just drop a line. Are you still in school?
Will do. No, I’m out of school by many years — Ramapo College of New Jersey, Class of ‘85.