The 5 Ws and Why You Should Ask Them

The basic elements of any news article worth reading: why, when, where, what, who, and how. The author must answer each of the questions in order to have provided sufficient information to the reader.

So it is with evaluating your objectives in beginning to twitter. You should decide what Twitter is going to do for you. What you want to do, want to accomplish determines the kinds of tweets you post. If you are posting as a business, you might need to be careful about politics, religion, and what kinds of entertainment you like. As a teacher, you might have a particular image that you choose to maintain. As a gangsta rapper, u got 2 watch ur street cred. I’m just saying, think about the persona that you are creating.

Why will you tweet?
Will you twitter for business, education, fun, to meet people, to share knowledge, as part of a class? Figure out why you twitter because without a clear goal in mind, you might send the wrong message. If you twitter for fun, you can share that your “gf just fell naked off the balcony into the pool.” If you are twittering for business or as an instructor, you might not want to share that part of your life.

If you cannot think of a reason to twitter, stop right here. If you have no reason to twitter, don’t torture yourself by trying to do something in which you have no interest.

When will you twitter and how often?
Will you twitter at work or at home or in class or ?? Understanding why you are twittering may help with this question but you may also want to set a limit for yourself. Twittering can be addictive. There are also some unofficial rules about how much and how often anyone should twitter.

Where will you twitter?
Will you twitter from your phone, your iPhone, your computer? Will you twitter from your work computer, a lab computer, a library computer, or just from home? Will you twitter in the car, at the restaurant, in the grocery store?

What will you twitter?
Will you twitter the music you are listening to online or on iTunes? Will you twitter the link to the online article you are reading? Will you twitter links to video, your mood, what you are eating and drinking, what you are thinking? Will you share pictures in your twitters? Will you twitter your way to money management or twitter your way to wealth?

Who will you be when you twitter and whom will you twitter?
You can have more than one identity. Managing more than one identity can be very challenging and is not recommended for the beginner. However, if you want to have a business account that is very, um, businesslike and a private account under an assumed name that is not, you may. I recommend it.

You can twitter the world, you can twitter just a few friends. You decide. You can decide who you “follow” and you can block people whom you don’t want following you. You cannot “assign” someone to follow you. You can only tempt.

How will you twitter?
Will you use the Internet address or will you download software to use on your iPhone or laptop/desktop? If you are going to twitter using multiple identities, having different software for each identity is one way to manage your multiple personality ability. Or you can use software that allows you to use multiple Twitter accounts.