So what is Twitter? Twitter describes itself as “a real-time information network powered by people all around the world that lets you share and discover what’s happening now”. But how can it be useful to netballers?

You can use Twitter to quickly share information with people interested in what you have to say. UK Superleague teams Surrey Storm and Northern Thunder are both using Twitter to share information with their fans. During their recent Superleague matches they’ve been sending regular messages with match commentary and the latest scores. It’s not quite the same as watching the games or listening to live commentary on the radio but it’s better than nothing.

Some international netballers use Twitter too, with Australian Diamond Susan Pratley being the most active user so far. Judging by her recent comments she was very excited about the Diamonds tour to the UK but needed to go shopping for some warm clothes. The Diamonds were planning to send regular tweets throughout their current UK tour but haven’t sent many, however, The Netball Pod has been tweeting throughout each Test match and I was tweeting furiously during the last Test at the O2. Hopefully, more teams and players will follow the lead of those mentioned above. It would be useful if all Superleague and ANZ teams did the same during their games to provide everyone, not just local fans, with up to the minute information on each game. Obviously, time differences between countries will be an issue, but you get the idea.

To use Twitter, just sign up for a free account, then answer the question, “What’s happening?”  Your answer to that question is like a status update in Facebook, or what Twitter users call a “tweet.” Messages are limited to 140 characters – think of it like sending an online text message about what you’re doing or thinking about right now.

Take a look at Twitter’s public timeline – all the tweets being sent by the millions of other Twitter users. What you’ll see is mainly dross; complete strangers talking about what they had for breakfast and not in the least bit interesting. To really get any benefit from Twitter you need to start ‘following’ people which means their tweets show up on your personal timeline (your home page). First of all follow a few netballers and their teams and read what they tweet about. But don’t just follow netballers. Search Twitter for other topics that you’re interested in and follow people who write interesting and informative things on that topic. You can also follow your favourite celebrities, if you really must. Just don’t expect Oprah or Britney Spears to do the same because you are one of millions of followers for them. Soon you may even have people following you to read what you have to say (but don’t feel you have to follow someone just because they’re following you.)

If this all sounds too much like hard work, you can link your Facebook and Twitter accounts so your status updates from Facebook are automatically sent to Twitter and vice versa, which takes the hassle out of posting status updates on both sites. There are lots of How-To guides out there too which have plenty of useful information on getting started with Twitter.

If you decide to give Twitter a try or you’re already using it, then share your Twitter name on the discussion board of the Netball Match Facebook page and connect more easily with other netball fans around the world. You can follow me on Twitter here.

Like with anything related to the internet, be careful. Don’t click on links promising pictures of naked celebrities as that’s just spam or someone phishing to try and find out your Twitter password.

Have you used Twitter and if so do you find it useful? Do you have any suggestions on how it can be used to help netball reach a wider audience?