Twitter Update

Twitter is a web based service that allows users to send short, 140 character, messages to each other via SMS (text) and the web.  For TdA, using twitter will allow us to send 5 -10 short updates each day from the tour.  Family and friends of riders can follow these updates and even reply via twitter.  To receive updates you must have a twitter account and follow us at http://twitter.com/tdalive.How to sign up for twitter and get live updates from the 2010 tour:

Twitter is a free service and signing up is free.  Riders, and friends and family of riders can go to http://www.twitter.com and sign up for an account.  This takes just a few minutes.   Once you have an account anyone interested in following @tdalive to get live updates from tour should do two things:

1)      Go to http://twitter.com/tdalive and request to follow us (you may have to sign into twitter first) 2)      Email your name, twitter name and relationship to a rider on tour to [email protected] .  Theresa will then accept your request to follow and follow them back   That’s it!  You will now receive live updates from the 2010 Tour d’Afrique.  You can have twitter automatically email new posts to your email address or have them sent to your mobile phone via SMS (text message).  You can also reply to @tdalive thru twitter.  Your replies will be received by Theresa in our South Africa office.  She will reply back or pass your message along to the people on tour when possible. 

We don’t keep anyone’s email or contact info.  And we won’t use the @tdalive account for anything except live tour updates.  Our use of this twitter account is solely for customer service purposes.  

We have another twitter account http://twitter.com/tourdafrique, that we use to post new tours, communicate with industry partners and communicate with potential clients.  Select tweets from the @tdalive account will be ‘re-tweeted’ to the @tourdafrique account but no personal rider info or specific details of their tour will be ‘tweeted’ to a public account without permission from the rider. 

  Have no idea what twitter is?

Fortunately, it’s not that complicated and there are plenty of free resources online to help. Here are a few of my favorites:   A quick video that explains twitter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddO9idmax0o

  A much more in depth guide: http://mashable.com/guidebook/twitter/

  Here is some info about public vs private twitter accounts (tdalive is private) http://help.twitter.com/forums/10711/entries/14016

  And of course the twitter website has a good help feature: http://twitter.com/help/start

  Tweet you later!