It certainly was challenging to create this guide to Twitter for beginners. This is due to the fact that there are so many changes happening on Twitter every day that it’s becoming increasingly difficult to keep up with them.

Nevertheless, when you get rid of all the stuff that make Twitter complicated to use, then teaching Twitter to beginners is relatively easy. This article will outline the core basics that all beginners need to know if they want to get started on Twitter as quickly as possible.

Before signing up, you need to have an email address. If for some reason, you don’t have an email address, you can easily get one for free from providers such as Yahoo, Hotmail or Gmail. Now that you have an email address, go to Twitter.com and click on the green “Sign Up Now” button. Enter your full name (you can choose to not use your real name), enter a unique username as well as a password and your email. Once you’ve done that, type in the characters to verify your humanness and then click on “Create My Account.”

Click on “Skip” on the next couple of pages until you arrive at the home page of your account.

There are 2 ways to find people: by name or by keyword.

If you want to find people by name, click on “Find People” at the top of the page and then type in the name of the person you are searching for. You should then be shown at list of results, one of which may be the person you are searching for.

If you want to find people by keyword, stay on your home page, and use the search function on the right hand side bar. If you want to find someone who shares your interests, type in that keyword and a list of latest people who have used that keyword in their tweets will come up. More often than not, if they’ve used that keyword that they are genuinely interested in that topic.

Once you found someone you’ve been looking for or shares your interest, you may want to follow them so that you can follow their tweets.

If you want to do this, simply click on their username and you will be directed to their page. Then click on the follow button underneath their profile picture. You should get notified that you’re following them. It’s that simple.

The best and only way to increase your influence on Twitter is by accumulating followers. In Twitter, there exists a concept called Twitter etiquette. This means that if you someone chooses to follow you, that you should do the same and follow them back. Of course, following them back is optional, but more often than not, they will repay the favor. The bottom line is that if you want to increase the amount of people following you, you have to take the initiative and start following others first. At the same time, don’t forget to follow people that follow you first.

After completing the above steps, you will find that Twitter is simple to use. You might even think that it is too simple and has no real purpose. Twitter only becomes useful and fascinating once you start to embrace applications. Nowadays, you can find thousands of applications online for a incredible variety of purposes. There are applications to use Twitter on your phone, to schedule your tweets, to use feeds on your account etc. All you need to do is search for “twitter apps” to see how many there are.

However, do not use too many apps at the same time because instead of enhancing the Twitter experience, it can make it more confusing and put you off. The KISS principle of keeping things stupid really does apply to Twitter especially to beginners.

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Twitter now has some competition on its hands. There is a new micro-blogging website called Tipdrop.com that was created by John Ledger earlier this year. Tipdrop is very similar to Twitter, but Tipdrop allows you to use 255 characters with each message you post, rather than 140 as with Twitter.

The layout for both blogging platforms is very similar. They both utilize a two column layout with messages appearing in the wider left-hand column, and the user’s information appearing in the narrower right-hand column. However, Tipdrop allows you to include up to ten URL links as part of your profile. Those links appear in the right-hand column of your Tipdrop homepage.

Both focus on different questions that appear at the top of the main page. Twitter asks the famous self-centered, “What are you doing?” Tipdrop, on the other hand, doesn’t care what you are doing right now, but wants to know, “What do you know about that?”

Tipdrop is developing a character all of its own by focusing on what you know rather than what you do. This is completely different from the gossipy triviality of Twitter. By sharing knowledge about specific topics, each contribution is focused outward on the topic, rather than inward on the person posting the information.

The tips shared on Tipdrop are then organized into categories, such as Arts & Humanities, Dining Out, Personal Development and so on. When a tip is posted, you are presented with similar threads to assist you in finding the best place to post your tip. If there are no threads that cover your topic, you simply post it as a new thread.

People are able to vote tips up and down. Also, every member of Tipdrop is assigned an initial credibility ranking of 100. The more a member contributes to Tipdrop, and the more votes a member receives for their tips, the higher their credibility ranking. There are links to the User Rankings list with links to user pages of each member in the Site Links section of the home page.

The ability to vote on tips means that the overall quality of Tipdrop is likely to rise over time.

First of all, any marketer who blatantly promotes his or her own business will get punished by other members who will quickly vote down any contribution that is merely self-promotional. This helps ensure the overall quality of contributions made to the site and is a good thing.

However, internet marketers still have plenty of room to build up a reputation and brand themselves on Tipdrop. This can be done simply by offering a regular supply of high-quality tips that other members will appreciate. As you post more tips and your credibility rises, you will enjoy increasing exposure on Tipdrop. More people will check out your own page and click your links. So, by making a positive contribution to Tipdrop, you will also be quietly promoting your own business and yourself as an expert in your particular field.

Another neat feature of Tipdrop is that it comes with an Adsense revenue sharing system. If you have an Adsense account, all you need to do is enter your Adsense publisher ID in the appropriate field on the Settings page. Then, whenever people click on the ads that appear on your pages, Tipdrop will give you 75% of the generated revenue.

Tipdrop.com is easy to join. Just like joining Twitter, it is simply a matter of hitting the Sign Up button on the home page and filling in a short online form with your name, username, password and e-mail address. And, just like Twitter, it is 100% free.

I doubt that Tipdrop will completely replace Twitter, because despite the similarities, they have different intentions behind them. However, what already seems obvious is that Tipdrop is a micro-blogging website that is set to grow and grow and become a leading source of online tips and advice across a wide range of categories.

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