We recently held a Twitter 101 session for our employees. Some interesting questions came up during the session so I thought I would share those questions and our responses here on our blog. If you have any additional questions you would like answered please feel free to add them in the comments and we will respond to them. Thank you.

When companies get involved with Twitter, is it driven by the company or individual employees? Are they using it for internal communication or external?

It varies. Generally, Twitter is used for communication with people outside of a company, although there are applications that allow internal microblogging as well.

Some companies encourage ALL of their associates to be active on Twitter and allow their associates to Tweet on their behalf – Zappos and Best Buy are examples. Others are more comfortable having an overall corporate account. That corporate account may be handled by an individual or by a group of people who all contribute.

How a company approaches this really depends on what their goals are.

What should I put into the “Location” field when I sign up?

It’s an open field, so you can put whatever you want in this space. Consider your comfort level with people knowing where you are. You can be specific and put the exact city you’re in (Flower Mound, TX) or, if you don’t want people to know exactly where you are, you can be more generic and say DFW or Dallas, TX.

What if I don’t have a website to list on my Twitter account?

At the very least, everyone should have a LinkedIn account listed. You can always build up your LinkedIn profile to ensure it includes any relevant information about you and then use that as your web address.

What if I have multiple websites I want to share?

Twitter only provides space for one website. However, there are a number of options for sharing others.

1. If you have space left in your bio you can include a link there.
2. You can create custom backgrounds and include URLs in them. Keep in mind, you won’t be able to make them live links so visitors can click on them, but if they are short and easy to remember, people can enter them into their browser.

There are services that allow you to create an online business card so you could use that as your sole web address. One example of someone who provides this service is Card.ly.

Is it best to setup a single account for a group or organization (in this case a band) or multiple accounts for different people/members?

It really depends on how active you can be and what your goals are for Twitter. The challenge with setting up an account for multiple individuals within an organization is that everyone then has to be active. Plus, you’re forcing your audience to either follow ALL of you or choose who they will follow. Setting up one account streamlines things and takes the pressure off of each band member. If one of you can’t be active for some reason, the others can make up for their lack of activity.

There’s also software available that allows you to share a single Twitter account but still allows each person to have an identity. One example that we use at Ivie is CoTweet. It’s a free service that allows more than one person to Tweet on a single Twitter account. You assign each person a CoTag which identifies for your audience who sent that particular Tweet.

Is a direct message more like email or IM?

It’s sort of in between the two. It’s not as immediate as IM, but you could be sitting on Twitter bouncing messages back and forth with another person pretty quickly. It also depends on how much time you’re spending on Twitter or within a Twitter application.

Do you have to add yourself to Twellow (people directory for Twitter) in order to find other people on the site?

Twellow is basically the Yellow Pages for Twitter. It’s a great way to find people who are tweeting about topics you’re interested in. Twellow automatically pulls Twitter users into their system, so if you have Twitter account you are probably already listed. However, you can login to the system and claim your account so that you can control what information is contained there.

Is there spam? How can I avoid it?

Unfortunately, just like anyplace else on the web there is spam. Twitter does an outstanding job of blocking most of it and quickly removing those users who are using Twitter for that purpose. In addition, you can quickly and easily block those people who do send spam and report them to Twitter.

Should I tag Tweets with my location?

That’s a personal decision. Keep in mind that if you turn that feature on, people will know exactly where you are tweeting from – home, work, school, etc.

If you don’t tweet for a certain period of time will your account become inactive?

It can happen, but it’s very unusual. Here is their official policy, which can be found on their website. “We encourage users to actively log in and use Twitter when they register an account. To keep your account active, be sure to log in and post an update within 6 months of your last update. Accounts may be removed from the site due to prolonged inactivity, so please use your account once you sign up!”

Is there a way to update Twitter and Facebook in one place?

There are applications that allow you to update both.

1. You can connect the 2 accounts to each other so your Status Update on Facebook automatically publishes to Twitter. This can be done by installing the Twitter application within your Facebook page.
2. There are 3rd party applications, like Tweetdeck, that allow you to manage multiple social media sites – including Twitter and Facebook – from one place.
3. If you install an application called Selective Tweets onto your Facebook page, you can simply add #fb to the end of a Tweet, and it will automatically show up in Facebook as a Status Update.

You can do something similar with LinkedIn by adding your Twitter account to your LinkedIn profile.  Then just by including #IN at the end of a Tweet, it will show up as your LinkedIn Status Update. This is a great way to stay on top of LinkedIn updates since that’s the site people tend to spend the least time with.