An Idiots Guide To Twitter – What To Know and Understand
Are you new to social networking and want to learn the fundamentals of one of the best platforms in the world? Well, you’ve come to the right place! Twitter is a social networking service where somewhere around 330 million users interact with one another through short messages of up 280 characters. Right now there’s close to 6,000 tweets being sent through the web every second, differing from standard text messages to images, videos, gifs, memes, and even more. Twitter is among the most in demand social networking sites and is quite different to other social networking giants like Facebook and Instagram.
Twitter is a platform where members offer a range of information; from news, politics, jokes, or just general thoughts about ambiguous topics! Instead of having a circle of friends like Facebook, Twitter is dependent on followers (not always friends) so not only can you interact with friends, but also your favourite sport stars, journalists, and politicians alike. Everything you publish on Twitter is available publicly for everybody to find, but don’t panic, you can easily alter your preferences to private if you wish to.
The first step in understanding Twitter is to be aware of the basic terms and lingo used. The following lists the most frequent vernacular:
Tweet – A 280-character message
Retweet (RT) – Sharing a tweet created by another person
Feed – The list of tweets you’ll find on your homepage from individuals that you choose to follow
Handle – Your username
Mention (@) – A way of referencing other members in a tweet (e.g. @EAGames). Any member mentioned in a tweet is notified, being a practical way to connect with other users publicly
Direct Message (DM) – A private message (280 characters) sent to another person. You can either elect to accept DM’s from all users or just members that you follow
Hashtag (#) – A keyword or phrase used to describe a topic or theme in a discussion (e.g. #Vegans). You can locate tweets from all users that mention a specific hashtag by clicking the hashtag itself.
Creating an Account
Creating an account is quick and straightforward, just download the app or go to www.twitter.com and hit the signup tab. The full name you enter will be your display name, but this can be altered as frequently as you want. Select a username (or handle) so members can mention you by typing the @ symbol before your username. After you’ve typed in your phone number for verification purposes, selected an avatar, and developed a quick bio about yourself so others can see your hobbies and interests, you’re all set to go!
Joining the Twittersphere
As mentioned earlier, Twitter isn’t about friending, it’s about following. Not only can you follow your buddies, but also any other individuals of which you’re a fan. Once you’ve subscribed, Twitter will provide a standard kind of setup wizard to help you start, for example suggesting some people that you may be interested in following. You can grant Twitter permission to explore your contacts list to look for any of your friends that are already using Twitter. Following friends and other users is particularly simple, and once you’ve started following certain users, Twitter will continue to provide recommendations for other users to follow based upon the kinds of users you’re currently following. All the tweets of your followers will show up in your Feed, so the more you follow, the more Tweets will appear in chronological order in your Feed.
Tweet Something
You can Tweet anything you like, as long as it fulfills Twitters rules and guidelines (https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/twitter-rules). This includes mentioning other users (@), promoting a topic or theme (#), or Retweeting other user’s comments (RT). Simply click the ‘Compose New Tweet’ button and you can Tweet text, photos, videos, images, gifs – a whole range of different media that can be uploaded via your device. Remember though, videos can only be a maximum of 2 minutes and 20 seconds in length, however photos and images do not count towards your character limit, which is fantastic!
Once you’ve understood the basics of Twitter, the world is literally at your fingertips! You can keep up to date with the most recent trends, be the first to view viral posts, and communicate with your friends and favourite personalities in a simple and user-friendly platform.
Once you’ve got started using Twitter, the rest will fall into place naturally, so why join the Twittersphere today? If you need any help with getting started on Twitter, simply reach out to Internet Marketing Experts Albany on 1300 595 013, or visit our website for more information: http://www.internetmarketingexpertsalbany.com.au
