What is Twitter?

For those of you who aren’t familiar with the site, what is Twitter?  Twitter is best described as a micro-blog.  The question "What are you doing right now?" is a good guide for what you should post at different times throughout the day.  However, you can also give updates on other things that are important or of interest to you, such as posting a link to a news story.  Each of the messages that you post, must be short -- 140 characters or less.

Where can you find HomeAway on Twitter? Join the Conversation!

If you are already signed up with Twitter, you can find us @homeaway or http://twitter.com/homeaway

Vacation Rental owners can also follow the HomeAway Owner Community and Christine Karpinski on Twitter, @homeawayoc or http://twitter.com/homeawayoc

What will you see from @HomeAway on Twitter?

If you follow the @HomeAway Twitter account you will see updates on HomeAway mentions in the press, announcements of new products and company news.  You will also see links to travel guides, travel articles and answers to questions posted by other Twitter users.

Here are a few recent posts from @HomeAway:

homeaway: Snowbirds, listen up! What do conch shells, key lime pie and Hemingway have in common? Take a winter vacation in Key West! http://cli.gs/zggRnd
about 7 hours ago

homeaway: Did you know that HomeAway is now offering owners the option to accept traveler payments online? http://cli.gs/payment
1 day ago

homeaway: @SupportMyOffice Here are our Special Offers available for those dates in Orlando. http://cli.gs/h4u7VV Good luck in your search!!
6 days ago

homeaway: Who's the most interesting company in online travel? Travolution thinks it's HomeAway! What website gets your vote? http://cli.gs/m6mapv
14 days ago

How do you sign up with Twitter?

1.    Go to twitter.com and click on "Get Started--Join!"

2.    Choose a username, etc. and sign up.

3.    Click on "skip" at the bottom of the next page, don't worry about signing up your friends yet.

4.    Click on "Settings" at the top of the next page

5.    Update your name (you can use your first, or first and last name), Time Zone, and Location and click Save. You can update the rest later. Do not choose "Protect my updates" for now. You are able to change this setting later, so try Twitter for a few weeks with your updates public.

6.    Your account is set up!

7.    Now you just need to follow some people and have people follow you.  You can get started with “Find People” at the top of the page

8.    Be sure to tell your friends what your username on Twitter is and ask them to follow you. If you have friends already on Twitter, you can follow them.

9.    To follow someone, just find their username via the “Find People” tool and click on the button that says Follow, it’s that simple!

As an example, to follow HomeAway, you can search for HomeAway in the “Find People” tool or you can go to our main Twitter page: http://twitter.com/homeaway and click follow.  After you click follow you’ll receive an update every time we post a new message on our HomeAway account.

Once you start posting, there are a couple of things to remember about your posts:

1.    Everything that you post will be public.

2.    Messages are limited to 140 characters or less, so if you post something longer than that it will be cut off.

This is a very high level overview of how to begin using Twitter.  If you want to become an active user you should read through some of the FAQs on the Twitter Help pages.  You can also download desktop applications or applications for your phone that will make using Twitter very easy.  We hope to see you soon and look forward to the conversation!

Twitter Terms to Know:

@ - Used in front of user when referencing them.  This will make sure they see the tweet. Ex. If tweeting to “JohnDoe” use @JohnDoe

RT (or R/T) – Re-Tweet.  Used to ‘forward’ one of your friends tweets to your friends.

DM – Direct Message.  Used to send private info to other users

Reply – Used when responding to another’s tweet.  This will make sure that you tweet shows up as “in reply to”:
 

# - A particular twitter trend – When updating about a particular event, using the hash tag

Update – The technical name for your ‘tweets’. 

URLs* – All URLs must have an http:// in front of the address and the URL must have a space before the beginning and the end of the entire address.  An example of an invalid URL due to a lack of a space:

 
*URL Shorteners-Services like http://cli.gs/ or http://bit.ly/ allow for easy posting of URLs in a short, Twitter friendly format

Follow @homeaway on Twitter

Follow @homeawayoc on Twitter