Since Facebook’s recent PR disaster with their proposed new Terms of Service I’ve had a lot of my friends there sign up for Twitter accounts. This is primarily a reference for them, but hopefully you’ll get something of value out of it as well…

I should also point out that I myself am pretty much done with Facebook, so don’t be surprised when I bash it.

There are two very big differences between Facebook and Twitter, besides the fact that Facebook = The Internet for babies (see?):

Whereas Facebook is a semi-private network of trusted friends (in theory, anyway) Twitter is a public forum. Unlike Facebook, Twitter won’t notify you of what you’ve missed while you were away. The best metaphor I’ve read for it likens it to a stream that you fish from — that is, you don’t worry about the fish that you miss.

Okay, so now that you’re on Twitter, what do you do?

1. Follow Twitter_Tips and read every link they post.

This was a great resource for me when I started out with Twitter — after a few days of diligent reading you’ll quickly become familiar with Twitter fundamentals like #hashtags, @replies, Direct Messages and Retweets.

Peter Cashmore at Mashable is another good account to follow. I’m sure there are more…

2. Choose the Twitter that fits.

Possible ways you can use Twitter include:

Facebook-style status updates – This is fine if you want to keep your Twitter followers to a small circle of people you already know. Keep in mind, though, that your chances of gaining new followers with this approach are close to zero — nobody you don’t know gives a rat’s ass about the awesome sandwich you just ate.

An RSS feed – Lots of bloggers use Twitter to announce new posts. The good ones will actually check their Twitter accounts to see if anyone cares.

A starfuck – Hey, if you want to join the other tens hundreds of thousands of sheep and follow the daily tedium of Stephen Fry or some other celebrity, who am I to stop you? It’s a step up from People Magazine, I guess…

An open channel of communication to a product or service – Companies that get this — like Starbucks and Jet Blue Airways — engage their customers in a way that wasn’t previously possible. If you’re a loyal customer of a specific brand you might want to check and see if they’ve got a Twitter account.

A back-channel for bloggers and other professionals within a specific industry or discipline – With the overwhelming number of smart folks on it, Twitter is probably the best public forum for any specific topic. This is how I use Twitter, specifically for technology and politics. Even if you happen to be a dear friend, if you’re not twittering on either of these topics I may choose not to follow you — which brings us to…

3. Find your own rules for following.

There are a lot of differing opinions on this. Some believe that you should follow everyone who follows you, as a courtesy if nothing else.

I prefer to take advantage of the way Twitter has implemented following as a mutually non-binding act — if you make interesting tweets I will find and follow you sooner or later; if you don’t I need to keep my incoming stream free and clear for things I actually want to read.

With this approach comes the understanding that some people will follow me and then quickly un-follow when I don’t follow them back. That’s fine. Twitter isn’t a popularity contest, at least for me.

… And that’s about all I can think of for now. This isn’t meant to be an exhaustive guide to Twitter, but hopefully it will be enough to get you started.

Oh, and one more point of order for Facebook refugees: You don’t have to start your tweets with “is” — honest!