Getting Started with Twitter
Twitter describes itself as a “real-time information network,” a network that primarily connects one person to many in short, 140-character messages. Using it requires only a free Twitter account anda computer with Internet access (or a phone with SMS capability).
While Twitter has been around since 2006, it really came to prominence when a user posted the first picture of a plane floating on the Hudson River with its passengers standing on the wings. Initially, Twitter was used to tell others what one was doing or thinking. Celebrities, notably Ashton Kutcher, helped it garner public attention for that kind of use. Politicians then used it to tweet their thoughts and make calls for action. Businesses soon followed with introductions of their products, coupons or special Twitter promotions, and integration with other social media messages. Jack–in-the-Box integrated it with a Super Bowl video and Facebook page where Jack was hit by a bus, his condition reported as tweets along with an insider story about a takeover. It has also been used for posting job announcements and for backchanneling during meetings. And today companies are constantly monitoring it for public and customer relations purposes. Clearly, Twitter is an evolving and growing communication medium for a variety of social messaging purposes.
Teachers are using it, too. Some have used it to post content in small chunks, some post review ortest questions, and more are beginning to use it to create conversations (or discussions). Surprising many, Twitter can work quite wellas a conversational tool. It forces one to think clearly in order to express thoughts both concisely and clearly. Furthermore, those involved in the conversation are more willing to read others short messages, helping everyone stay focused.
As with any tool, knowing how to use it effectively makes it more valuable. Below are three types of information that should help you master the basics, know where to look for more good information, and use a few advanced techniquesto become even more efficient.
Quick Start Guide:This section includes basic instructions for setting up a Twitter account along with some tips for reading (called following), posting, forwarding (called retweeting), and replying to messages.
Resources: In addition to a list of some basic tweeting terms, this section includes links to third-party apps along with an annotated list of links to videos, tutorials, and blogs.
Advanced Tips: Learning a few advanced tips can often give you a distinct advantage over others. Included here are a few good ones culled from research and users’ comments. As you become experienced with Twitter yourself, you’re likely to add a few more to your list of favorites.
Quick Start Guide
This section will guide you through signing up for a Twitter account, reading and finding Twitter messages, and posting your own messages to an individual or to the world. Before you start you may want to choose a picture of yourself and create a short (160-character) bio to use. The picture will appear next to all your posts and the bio will be part of your public profile.
Setting up a Twitter Account
1 / Go to Twitter.com ( and sign up by entering your name, email address, and a password for the account you are creating. Twitter will display a confirmation page that includes a suggested username along with suggestions for other usernames that are available. You can enter another name if you like; however, for class purposes using your real name is a good idea.2 / Click Create my account to display the Twitter Welcome. You can begin to select those you’d like to follow by clicking on the + Follow button if you like.
3 / Click on Next Step: Interests to select others to follow based on topics that interest you.
4 / Click on Next Step: Friends > to find others to follow. Twitter will search through your Yahoo, Gmail, Hotmail, AOL, or LinkedIn contacts to find others to follow. For this class account, click Skip Import > to display the Twitter start page.
5 / You could immediately begin tweeting here, but it’s also a convenient place to do a few more things. Each of the options is linked to a page that helps you complete that task. If you plan to use only your phone to tweet with text messages, you’ll want to set it up next. However, most users prefer tweeting from their desktops, laptops, tablets, or smartphones. But everyone should setup a personalized profile with a picture and short bio. This appears in your public profile, in search results, and more. The picture can easily be added by clicking on the Browse. . . button and pointing to the photo file you want to use. If you describe yourself in your bio as a student at yourschoolname majoring in yourmajor, it’ll help others with similar interests, including recruiters, find you. When you are finished, click Save .
6 / By now you may have noticed more tabs at the top of the screen. In addition to the Profile tab, you’ll see one for Account. Clicking on it opens a screen with some settings you can adjust for language, time zone, location, and more. If you want to keep your tweets private or if your instructor recommends that you do, check the Tweet Privacy box to √ Protect my tweets. . When you are finished, click Save .
Following (Reading) and Finding Posts
A good way to start with Twitter is first to read others publicposts as well as find what others are posting on topics that interest you.
Here you see labeled in green calloutssome typical components of a tweet (a Twitter message). These include the user’s picture that was uploaded at sign in (and can be changed at any time in Settings under the Profile tab), the user’s full name, and the actual message, including in this case a complete URL to a video. If there is a picture, video, map, or other link in the message, you’ll see an icon for it included in the upper right corner of the tweet display.
Twitter gives you some additional information and options shown here with blue callouts. It tells you how old the post is and gives you the option to save it as a favorite, retweet (repost or forward) it, or reply. If you click on a post, Twitter will expand it in the right sidebar. Below you can see how this post with its video link looks when it is expanded.
Another way to find posts is through the use of a hashtag (#) and another term or abbreviation entered in the search box. In the illustration below, you see the search results from using two hashtags together, #MLB and #Strasburg. The characters used in hashtags are part of the 140allowed in the message. They can be typed anywhere in the message. Hashtags help you find tweets on the same topic; your instructor will likely assign hashtags when creating a discussion topic. Be sure you spell them exactly right or you won’t find the discussion. If one had searched for #MLB #Strassberg, no tweets would have been found or only ones where another person spelled it Strassberg, too.
After you are comfortable with finding posts and have read enough of them in your areas of interest to understand conventions used there, you are probably ready to begin posting. Just remember that what you post may become part of the public record. It could even go viral quickly.
Posting, Retweeting, and Replying To Tweets Collectively and Individually
While most is done publicly, you can send private messages to individuals and followers. However, those messages could be retweeted, so it’s best to think of both your primary reader and perhaps even the public as secondary readers whenever you tweet. The newest version of Twitter also lets you delete messages and undo retweets. Although they may stay in Search for a while,the folks at Twitter say they will clear eventually.
While Twitter’s prompt, What’s happening?,accurately reflects its form as a real-time communication medium, you can enter whatever you like in the box – a thought, a question, a recommendation. You can also add your location, which might be especially useful to your followers if you were tweeting about the great street pitas at a new Greek restaurant. As you enter the text, Twitter will let you know how many characters are left. Click Tweet when you are ready to post your message. It will be public unless you’ve set your account up to allow only approved people to follow you. If that’s the case, it will only be available to your followers, but any one of them could retweet it.
In the latest version of Twitter, when a message has been retweeted Twitter inserts a retweet icon and the word byalong with the original tweeters name at the top of the tweet. Until now it’s been conventional in third-party apps as well as for long-time tweeters to insert RT @username to credit the source. Not only did it become problematic when users retweeted already retweeted messages, but in doing so it also become a part of the character count, limiting the message length.
Sometimes when you are reading tweets, you may find that you want to reply not just to a group or the public but to a particular user. You can do this using the reply feature in Twitter.
If you wanted to respond to this question posed by Karl Strauss Brewing, you’d click the Reply icon to open the message entry window you see here. Notice that while it in inserts the reply notation (the @ sign and username), it also deducts the number of characters in the notation from those available for your message.
Using this feature sends the message to Karl_Strauss andis available publicly. If you’d like to send someone a private message, you can if they follow you. In a follower’s profile, an envelope icon is present in the bottom right-hand corner. Click on this to open the direct message window so that you can enter and send your private message.
Beware ofcommitting Twittercide! To avoid publishing words today you think you might have even the slightest thought that you’ll regret, try consistently putting yourself in both your primary and secondary readers’ placebefore you send a message.
You should now be ready to find, follow, post, retweet, and reply to tweets. You may find that you want to set up a couple of Twitter accounts so you can use this tool both personally and professionally. The more you use it the easier it gets and the more effective you get with it. You may you want to try using some of the third-party apps that are available, integrating Twitter with your Facebook and other social media applications, or even just posting pictures, maps or videos. You’ll find some resources here as well as a few words on some more advanced techniques to use when you’re ready or when you need them.
Resources
Here you’ll find common Twitter terminology, a short annotated list of some good third-party apps, and a list of resources for further help with polishing your tweeting.
Common Tweeting Terms
# ( called hashtag) -- / The hashtag symbol, #, identifies specific topics, allowing users to connect with people discussing the same things. It can be used alone in a tweet or combined with other hashtags.DM -- / DM labels a tweet as a direct message, one that’s private between the sender and the receiver.
Follower -- / Someone is a follower when one elects to have your tweets pushed to him or her. If your account is private, you will be asked to approve requests to follow. In any case, your Twitter account will show the names of those following you.
Mention -- / When a user receives a mention, someone has include the @ symbol and their username within a tweet. Twitter collects your username mentions for you in a tab labeled @mention.
Promoted Tweets -- / Twitter defines a Promoted Tweet as an ordinary Tweet that advertisers pay to highlight to a wider group of users.
Reply -- / A reply is a response to a tweet. When you click the reply arrow on the tweet, Twitter enters the @username at the beginning of the response. The characters are deducted from the 140 allowed for the message.
RT -- / RT is a commonly used abbreviation to show readers that the message is a retweet. It is a way of crediting the source. Some third party apps as well as long-timer tweeters may still use them, but the new Twitter interface has replaced RT with the retweet symbol followed by the username in the top line of a tweet.
Tweet -- / According to Twitter.com, tweet, used as a noun, is a message posted via Twitter containing 140 characters or fewer. But when used as in tweet, Tweeting, or tweeted, it refers to the act of posting a message.
Useful Third-Party Apps
140it / / Here's a web-based utility to help you reduce a tweet to less than 140 characters.Brizzly / / This relatively new client lets you view and post updates to Twitter and Facebook as well as see and watch photos and videos within it.
ExecTweets / / This Microsoft app helps users find and follow top business executives on Twitter.
Hootsuite / / HootSuite allows you to manage multiple social networks includingTwitter, Facebook (Profiles and Pages), LinkedIn, Wordpress.com, Foursquare, Myspace andPing.fm. The upcoming Jump Start emails will explain how to add social profiles, work with streams, create click reports, and more.
SocialOomph / / This fully featured web-based app has a free and professional side. On the first page of its site, it clearly lays out the features included in each. Along with URL shortening, management, and scheduling tools, it also provides a way to save drafts and reuse tweet elements along with many other highly sought after features.
TinyURL / / This URL shortening app reports on the original length of the URL submitted and the new length in characters. You can also open in a new window with the new URL if you like.
TweetDeck / / This widely used real-time Twitter client was purchased by Twitter in May 2011, reportedly for its ability to track tweets. It helps you manage multiple accounts, connect with Facebook, LinkedIn, and more, shorten URLs, and schedule tweets for future posting, and much more. It's available for use with the desktop, iPhone, Android, and Chrome.
Twhirl / / Twhirl describes itself as a socail software desktop client. It offers several utilities including the ability to manage accounts, shorten URLs, search, find mentions, record video, and even spell check tweets.
TwitPic / / This app lets you easily post photos or videos from a phone, a site, or through email. Most of the major Twitter clients have built-in support for TwitPic.
twitterfeed / / This web-based app will feed your blog to Twitter, Facebook, and more as well as track the feeds providing real-time stats.
URL shortner and QR code generator / / Just enter your URL and with a click it'll generate a shortened one; with one more click, it'll generate a QR code, too.
More Resources
Apps list / / This blog page provides a comprehensive list of apps for various platforms organized by topic along with an annotation for each. It is updated regularly, and new apps are tagged so that they're easy to identify.Discover the new Twitter / / This three-minute video gives an overview of the new Twitter interface. It includes use of Search.
Get Satisfaction (Troubleshooting) / / This community support page is organized into Frequently Asked Questions, Popular Ideas, and Common Problems.
Tweet Smarter / / This blog is a collection of well-written articles all covering various aspects or news related to tweeting and Twitter.
Twitter Guide Book / / This page collects and organizes material on using Twitter. This includes information on the basics of using and managing it, including using it for business.
Twitter Search / / The basic concepts presented in this animation are good although in a few spots the illustrations are from an older interface.
Twitter SMS Commands / / This link brings you to Twitters’ instructions for using Twitter with SMS.
Twitter Support (Troubleshooting) / / This URL links to the troubleshooting guide in the Twitter help center. Top issues are identified along with more commonly seen problems. It's a good first place to go when something is wrong and you can't easily figure out what.
Advanced Techniques
Once you are familiar with the basics of tweeting, you might find you’d like easier or better ways to find information, shorten long URLs,tag and view favorite posts, post pictures, or even cross-post to Facebook, LinkedIn, and other social media sites as well as manage tweets and multiple accounts. All of these are possible; some can be done with a use of some Twitter features and others with easy-to-use third-party apps. Here are some brief descriptions of some of these advanced techniques you can try.