Twitter Basics
There are lots of great tutorials and how-to articles on Twitter. The Twitter help and forum pages are also great resources. I write this article to try to put the basic concepts of Twitter in as simple an explanation as possible. My target audience are complete newbies and non-techies. TIMELINES AND TWEETS The easiest way to think of Twitter is like a bulletin board. A bulletin board where you post messages. Your bulletin board is known as a "timeline." Each user gets their own bulletin board at the following address: http://twitter.com/username. For example, my bulletin board is: http://twitter.com/SergioGonzales. The messages that you post to your timeline are called "tweets." Tweets are limited to 140 characters per message but you can post as many messages as you like. TO FOLLOW AND BE FOLLOWED You can follow what people are posting by going to their bulletin board and clicking on the "follow" button. These are the people you are "following." When you follow someone, you are signing up to see any messages they are posting to their timeline. Similarly, people can follow you by doing the same. These people are your "followers." PUBLIC VS PRIVATE By default, all new Twitter accounts are public, so anyone can see what you post to your account. You can make your tweets private so only those you allow will be able to see what you post. Let's recap for a moment:- Twitter is your own personal bulletin board, sometimes referred to as a timeline
- Tweets are messages you post to your timeline
- You can follow what people are posting to their timelines
- Timelines are public by default
So far so good. Really, these are the only basics you need to know to use Twitter. Now I'll walk you through some of the other Twitter terms you might have heard of like: hashtags, mentions, replies, and re-tweets. Remember that messages posted in Twitter are called tweets, right? Well, these other terms are just fancy variations of a tweet. I'll walk you through some examples. This is my first tweet. This is a normal tweet. Nothing special here. You address other people by adding the "@" symbol before their username: @username. @johndoe I just watched the movie Jaws. This is called a reply. Replies are just a way to let @johndoe know that this tweet is meant especially for him. Replies ALWAYS put @username at the very beginning of the tweet. Note, however, that this message is still public and anyone who follows you will be able to see this tweet. I just saw the movie Jaws with @johndoe @janedoe This is called a mention. You have mentioned @johndoe and @janedoe in your message. But since these names do not appear at the beginning of your tweet, these are not treated the same way as replies. I think #sharks are cool. Any phrase preceded by a hashtag (#) is understood to be a topic or keyword. They are a way to highlight the content of your message. With all the millions of tweets, using hashtags lets you find tweets by topic. direct @johndoe are we on for poker tonight? or d @johndoe are we on for poker tonight? Any message that begins with direct @username or simply d @username is called a direct message. This is the only time what you post is private. It will send a direct, private message to @username. Only @username will see this message. There is one special requirement for sending direct messages. The person you are sending a message to must follow you first. It's not the most elegant solution, but its intent is to prevent spam. If you could just direct message anyone you wanted, imagine all the spammers sending you direct messages all day. You wouldn't want that now would you? @johndoe posts the following tweet: check out this cool shark video: http://sharkvidlink now you post: RT @johndoe check out this cool shark video: http://sharkvidlink - this clip was awesome This is known as a re-tweet. It began as a tweet from @johndoe that said: "check out this cool shark video: http://sharkvidlink." You have added your own comment as: "this clip was awesome." In this example you are following @johndoe, so you saw this link from his bulletin board. However, people who follow you do not see this post from @johndoe (unless they were following him). Therefore, re-tweeting (RT) allows you to share this video with your followers, while giving credit to @johndoe for the original post. It's a courtesy thing. Why don't your followers see the messages posted by the people you follow? Because. That's the way it is. Think about it. If you followed me, and I followed John, and John followed Jane, and Jane followed so on and so on. It wouldn't take very long until your home timeline was flooded by every single tweet in the world. Plus, think about the privacy. Jane may allow John to follow him, but doesn't know me and doesn't want me to see her posts. I shouldn't be allowed to bypass her wishes by following John who makes all his tweets public. Remember, I am listening to John's tweets, not Jane's. Another recap:
- reply: @username msg
- mention: msg @username
- hashtag: msg #keyword #topic
- direct: d @username msg (but only if @username is following you
That's pretty much it. Happy tweeting. Check back later for some advanced Twitter concepts.
