Type www.twitter.com into your browser. On the right hand side of the homepage, you will be invited to join Twitter as a newbie.

You will need to provide is a full name (this will be your user name!), a functioning e-mail address, and a new password for your account.

After you login, Twitter takes you through an easy-to-use step-by-step process to get your account up and running. It enables you to follow existing users you likely know (presumably via your e-mail address), list your personal and business interests, find friends via email address, and begin tweeting.

An omnipresent right hand sidebar also enables you to easily connect your new Twitter account to your mobile phone (you can download a Twitter application and/or set up mobile notifications to be sent directly to your phone), and to connect your account to existing accounts on Facebook, LinkedIn, AOL, Hotmail, Yahoo, and Gmail. 

For more detailed information, and step-by-step tips on Tweeting, please see our article on "How To Use Twitter, Really," in the News/Articles Section of our website.  http://www.booknook.biz/bk_news/post/how_to_use_twitter

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A breakdown of John Locke's "transfer of loyalty" principle.

A collection of links to helpful Twitter guides. 

Straight from the horse's mouth, HootSuite and TweetDeck are "a personal real-time browser, connecting you with your contacts across Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Foursquare, Google Buzz and more." You can download either system to your desktop, iphone, android, or Chrome. Essentially it's a dashboard service that arranges all of your social networking accounts into neatly organized columns, enabling you to connect and navigate among all of them simultaneously. Go to tweetdeck.com, or hootsuite.com, choose which option you'd like to download the service to, at the top of the page (computer or mobile phone), then click on the "Download" button provided and follow the step-by-step instructions to piece your virtual media life together. (Please see above instructions on how to sign up for any of the aforementioned networks).  (Note from Hitch:  Personally, I use Seesmic, which I like.  For power-tweeters, there are other tools like TweetAdder.  However, you should try them all--most have free trials--and see which suits you best).   

Here are some articles, comparing different social-networking management tools:

1. http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/3-social-media-management-tools/
2. http://www.toprankblog.com/2010/09/22-social-media-marketing-management-tools/ (from 2010, but still a good list)
3. http://www.socialmediadelivered.com/2012/05/18/top-20-social-media-management-tools/ --this is a must-read.

Hope you find these useful!  The link below is for Seesmic, which is affordable.  Not all social networking tools are; but make sure you search until you find the right one for you--which means, the one you'll use. 

Bitly is an online engine that shortens, shares, and tracks your links. Shortened links are helpful because they enable you to post direct links to Facebook, Twitter, e-mail, instant messaging, and websites, without taking up the annoyingly large amount of space most complete link codes require. Shortened links are particularly helpful in services like Twitter, which restrict your posts' character counts.

To create a shortened vanity url, simply go to bitly.com, copy and paste the link you'd like to shorten in the empty box provided in the middle of the page, and click on the "shorten" box to... shorten.

To track and analyze links regularly, you can sign up for bitly by clicking on the blue "Sign up" box at the bottom of the homepage. To sign up, you will be asked to provide a username, e-mail address, and a password, then click on "Sign up."  Once you are logged in, you can choose to connect your bitly account to your Twitter and Facebook accounts in order to shorten and share links directly.