Myspace and Facebook have seen their glory days, but Twitter is currently the reigning social networking site. One of the things that makes Twitter so popular is that it is much more simplistic than other social networking sites, but it can still be confusing to the beginner. Here are the basics.
Signing up-Signing up for Twitter is as simple as signing up for any other site. You will need to provide some basic information, select a username, select a background, and you can upload a picture for your profile if you would like to. If you have more than one email address, enter the one that most of your friends have. This can make it easier for them to find you on Twitter.
Tweets-Think of tweets as status updates. A tweet is a message that is 140 characters or less that will show up in the timeline of anyone who is following you on Twitter. This concept of telling people what you are doing in 140 characters or less is the whole idea behind Twitter. To tweet you simply enter what you want to say into the text box at the top of the page and click on “tweet”. Twitter will not let you send tweets if they are more than 140 characters and tells you how many characters you have left as you type your message. You can make up for this character limitation by using common internet abbreviations. The Twitter application Twitlonger will also allow you to tweet longer messages. Instead of the full tweet showing up, your followers will see a link they can click on to read the full tweet.
Following-On Twitter, you do not add friends. You follow other users. By clicking the follow button on someone’s Twitter profile you will then be able to see their tweets in your timeline on your homepage. Anyone who follows you will see your tweets in their timeline. You will see the number of users who are following you and the number of users you are following on the upper right hand side below your name.
Lists-As you start following more and more Twitter users, the number of tweets filling up your timeline can be overwhelming. You can put the users you are following on lists to make it easier to keep up with their tweets. When you click on a list, you will only see the tweets of the users you have added to that list.
Replies/Mentions-You can reply to a tweet by moving your mouse over the tweet and clicking on the word “reply” that will show up. This will take you to the text box at the top of the page and the person’s username, with the ‘@’ sign in front, will already be in the box. The ‘@’ symbol in front of the username is how you send a reply or mention someone in your tweet. You can see tweets that mention you by going to your homepage and clicking on your username in the upper right. It will also have the ‘@’ symbol in front of it (@myusername, for example). Other twitter users will be able to see your mentions of them and your replies in the same way.
Retweets-If you see a tweet in your timeline that you think is funny or want other people to see, you can retweet that message to your followers. When you roll your mouse over the tweet the word “retweet” will show up for you to click on. When you click on that the tweet will show up in your follower’s timelines as a retweet, meaning they will still see the username of the user who tweeted the message first. You will be able to see whether any of your own tweets have been retweeted by clicking on “retweets” above your lists, then clicking on “Your Tweets, Retweeted”.
Trending Topics-And finally, trending topics, which will show up below your lists, are the key words, people, or events that Twitter users are tweeting about. Trending topics can change quickly and you can also select a location to see which topics are trending in your area.
Twitter is much simpler than the other main social networking sites. It’s just a little bit different. Learning how to use Twitter is easy and can become a great way for you to connect with more people and share your thoughts with the world in simple messages of 140 characters or less.
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28. September 2010 at 11:13 PM
Thanks Joe, Sometimes I have to go back and review how other things work and by doing so I find out alot more than what I actually knew. Good Luck!
28. September 2010 at 11:07 PM
Thanks Susan.
20. September 2010 at 8:17 PM
Hi Phil,
Nice little walk through on Twitter! Great reminder about categorizing followers on list! Good way to keep it organized and easy to find!
thnx
Joe
20. September 2010 at 12:26 PM
A good source to have twitter guidance
20. September 2010 at 5:21 AM
Phil… great topic for people who are just starting out on Twitter. This is some good information and I’ll be sharing as you give simple to follow instructions to better help.
Thanks for sharing!
20. September 2010 at 4:54 AM
Thanks Ryan! I’ll be looking forward to reading your posts as well.
19. September 2010 at 8:19 PM
Sweet run down on Twitter Phil,
It’s a great platform for sure. I’ll be sharing this one out on Twitter for sure to my followers! Cheers!
19. September 2010 at 7:51 PM
Hi Phil,
thanks for sharing the Twitter basics. Not everybody will know that already, so I shared this post with my followers in social media.
Take care
Oliver
29. July 2010 at 10:27 AM
basically good…this article deserves nothing
…hahaha just joking 
…nice article
27. July 2010 at 6:24 PM
Hi, and Thanks for your comment. I use Akismet, which is a plugin you can get within WordPress.
22. July 2010 at 1:50 AM
Cool stuff, thanks for sharing, pretty much on the ball.
20. July 2010 at 11:40 AM
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18. July 2010 at 11:04 PM
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18. July 2010 at 8:50 AM
hey there I just wanted to comment your blog and say that I really enjoyed reading your blog post here. It was very informative and I also digg the way you write! Keep it up and I’ll be back to read more soon mate
16. July 2010 at 3:58 PM
this is phenomenally pleasing
11. July 2010 at 3:40 PM
I followed your instructions and it worked great! thanks!
8. July 2010 at 5:41 AM
thanks, very well written post, found it through a random google search and i shared it on my stumble upon account
8. July 2010 at 4:04 AM
I saw this page through Facebook (a friend of mine posted it). After reading, I then clicked “Like” and reshared it.
6. July 2010 at 11:38 PM
My Grandma just sent a tweet! God help us all. I’d like to use some of this information on my blog if you don’t mind, and I’ll provide a link back to your site.
6. July 2010 at 1:30 AM
Thanks Marlo, I will keep working on it and it will get better and better. Thanks Again!
6. July 2010 at 12:00 AM
The first time I visited this blog, I didn`t like the posts. Finally it is getting better and better.