Here are the directions on how to run twitter from your texting plan, if you don't have the ability or the desire to use a twitter app on your smartphone.

1. Send a text to your Twitter code with the word START
2. We'll reply and ask you to sign up if you're new or reply with your username if you already have an account.
3. Send your username (do not send any additional characters in the message, or we won't be able to read it correctly)
4. When Twitter asks for your password, carefully send your password to us (remember: passwords are case sensitive!
5. Twitter will ask you to say OK if you want to use Twitter on your phone. Send OK, and you're all set! Now you can send messages to your Twitter code, and they will post as Tweets on your Twitter profile for all your friends to read.
6. To get others' updates delivered to your phone now, you'll need to turn on mobile updates for those whose Tweets you wish to see on your phone. Until you do this, you will not receive any Tweets to your mobile phone. Check out these other phone commands for more tips and tricks!

I personally use both the twitter app for the iPhone as well as the SMS messaging.

Why? Because part of the beauty of twitter community is the community. Finding followers and becoming a following others, is half of the fun of twitter. However, I don't want to sift through hundreds of tweets from people I only know at a distant level. I want to focus in on a much smaller group of tweeters. So, the people that I really want to keep up with I have notifications sent to me via SMS. The others I just glance at briefly when I open the twitter app once or twice a week. This keeps me from wasting a bunch of time sifting through tweets I don't care about.

Great pictures are an awesome part of every great story. Also, they are an easy way to tell an entire story in the 140 characters or less that twitter keep us all to. The newest iPhone iOS 5 tweets pictures with the twitter app, but otherwise, you may need to use one of the following 3rd party apps.


Twitpic: Twitpic is the largest and most popular image sharing service on Twitter, in part due to all the attention it got in January when the first pictures of the Hudson River plane crash were shared on the site. It also has some popular celebrity users, like Grant Imahara from Mythbusters.
TweetPhoto: Competing with Twitpic will definitely be a steep, uphill battle for any other Twitter photo sharing service, but TweetPhoto offers a numbers of compelling features, such as stats, geo-tagging, favoriting, and Facebook integration, that make it a worthy competitor.
Pikchur: A multi-platform app, Pikchur lets users share images automatically in multiple places, including Twitter, Facebook, Friendfeed, Tumblr, and Flickr. Sign up is optional, meaning you can get started very quickly.
Twitgoo: Borrowing the look and feel of Twitter, Twitgoo asks its users, “What are you lookin’ at?” It is integrated into a number of third party apps, including favorites like Tweetie for Mac and TwitterBerry.
yfrog: Since yfrog comes from the guys behind ImageShack, you can bet it is going to be extremely simple, with a singular purpose in mind. Upload, log in, share — that’s it, but that’s all you need, right?

If you are getting into twitter for the first time, much of the lingo, techniques, and characteristics of a good twitter account are hard to keep up with at first. Take it easy. Don't lose any sleep over this. Just open up a new account and follow along with some tweets you might be interested. You might not send out your first tweet for a month or more. That's ok! Plenty of people are twitter followers alone and never tweet at all. I bet they still find it valuable nonetheless...

1. You can allow your people to get to know your personality. What a person's interests are tell a lot about them. This will help them respond to you during the Sunday's sermon.
2. You can restate the main sermon point of the week a few times throughout the week. Remind people how to apply God's Word to their daily lives.
3. You can highlight major events in the life of your church. If they are importaint to the pastor, they will be important to the flock.
4. You can network and share ideas with other Pastors. These leaders may be from your local area, or from another church across the country. Large or small, connectivity works. Relationships matter.
5. You can fulfill the Great Commission: When Jesus said: Go into all the world and preach the Gospel… “All the world” applies to the Internet-world, as well as the Twitter-world.  A pastor can go into all the world physically and digitally one tweet at a time.

Many people are beginning to get used to the concept of Twitter, and the usefulness of this new social media platform. However, there are millions of people who really don't see the point of Tweeting about ones-self, or reading someone else's Tweets that do the same. Here are 5 good reasons.


1. Twitter is very simple. It is only 140 characters. This is similar to the news headlines on all major TV networks, or newspapers. Short and to the point CAN get a message across.
2. Twitter allows you to get to know about people. This might be friends and coworkers, or it might be news anchors and national celebrities. Either way, the platform is the same.
3. Twitter will improve your ability to be brief. The greatest writers, and the greatest public speakers are not those who can go on and on for hours, but those who can capture an audience in just a few moments.
4. Twitter will allow you to be current. Up to date news flashes or trending topics about pop culture are all using Twitter as a rapid form of communication. Know your local area's concerns and the global political climate. Use it as a way to be aware of the world you live in.
5. Twitter will help your branding. Just like websites do, a twitter account can set you apart from the "competition." It can allow you to be uniquely you...

Twitter rule #1: Make your own rules.

If someone tells you you’re doing Twitter wrong, feel free to ignore them.