How To Use Twitter - The Basics

Twitter is probably one of the largest growing social networks on the internet, right behind Facebook. With just under a quarter-of-a-billion users, Twitter is a very powerful tool.

Tweets

Twitter’s approach to social networking is a lot more simplistic than Facebook’s. On Twitter you are limited only to status updates that can’t be any longer than 140 characters. These status updates are called Tweets. These restrictions on Tweets force Twitter users (or Twittterers) to be a lot more focused.

Twitter is more open than Facebook. Anyone that goes to your Twitter profile sees all the Tweets that you post on Twitter. To prevent this, you need to use a feature on Twitter that allows you to “protect” your profile. Doing this makes it so people cannot see your Tweets unless they are following you but this kind of defeats the purpose of Twitter.

Followers

When you first start learning about how to use Twitter the idea of followers may be a bit foreign. On Twitter you don’t have friends in the same way you have friends on Facebook. You have what are called followers and these are anybody that decides they want to receive your Tweets in their Twitter news stream. You do not have to give them permission to be a follower and it is up to you to decide to follow them back.

You receive updates from anyone that you follow on Twitter. These updates appear in your Twitter news feed, also called a Twitter timeline. To send a message to someone on Twitter you post a Tweet as usual but include @ and their username, like @ktberwick. By adding the @username to the beginning of a Tweet, only people following both you and that person see the Tweet in their timeline. If the @username is contained anywhere else in the Tweet then everyone that follows you is able to see that Tweet in their timeline.

To send someone a direct message on Twitter you start your Tweet with “d username”, without quotes. This message is sent directly to the user and nobody else sees the message.

Retweets

The viral nature of Twitter comes from the Retweet feature. This is an improtant concept to learn when trying to learn how to use Twitter. A Retweet is when someone on Twitter decides they want to repost your Tweet to their followers. All of their followers then see the Tweet appear in their timeline and can choose to Retweet it as well.

After you create a new post on your website it is advisable to Tweet it as well. The best way to do this is to use the post title and a link back to your post as the message of the Tweet. If other Twitterers find it useful then they may Retweet it and it could go viral. The result of all this Retweeting is an increase in the number of visitors to your website.

Hashtags

Hashtags are another useful feature on Twitter and an important part of learning how to use Twitter. A hashtag is similar to other kinds of tags but to do it on Twitter you need to add the # symbol before the word. For example, let’s say that you attend a conference titled “Websites for Beginners 2011”, you could create the #WfB11 hashtag. Remember we’re limited to 140 characters on Twitter, so shorter is better. Then while there, you could track that hashtag and see who is there and what is happening. Some conferences even use this as a way for audiences to ask panel members questions.