Twitter 101
Posted May 10, 2009 at 1:32 am
So recently a couple of my friends from back home have decided to try out twitter but seem a little lost and don't exactly know how to use all of the features that may not be all that clear at first.
Firstly, we must clear up a common misconception. Whenever I talk about the use of twitter to other non twitter users all they do is complain and say "twitter is for losers. I don't want to know what you are doing every second of your life. I dont want to know that you just ate a sandwich." Yes, it is true that some people like to post what they are doing every second of their life. Heres a solution, just dont follow them. Which brings me to the first step in having a twitter account.
1). Follow people.
One of the benefits of twitter is following people to see what they are up to. The majority of people (or atleast according to the people that I follow) dont post stupid things every second of every day. But however, they do post things that I am interested in and give you a little insight to what they are up to. For example, Trent Reznor, the genius behind the popular band Nine Inch Nails, has been giving out free concert tickets and back stage passes this week for the up coming tour. Or maybe youre into Mythbusters. Both Grant Imahara and Adam Savage are constantly posting pictures from the Mythbusters set and answering questions from fans and followers. Thats just a small sample of who's out there if you don't have a ton of friends that are already on twitter.
2). The @reply ("at-reply").
The "at-reply" is a very simple concept. Someone tweets something interesting and you feel like responding, but how do you do it? Just simply type the '@' symbol and their username and then your message. When you tweet it, the at-reply will show up in the users feed as a response. For example if you type @seanmcgary *enter message here*, that message will show up in my @reply section of my twitter client. It's a really easy way to have conversations with people that you want others to see as well.
3. The hash tag - #
Now this is a newer feature that the developers over at twitter decided to add recently because so many people just started using it to make searching easier. The use of the hash tag is quite simple. If you throw the hash tag in front of some term or "tag", it will make your tweets searchable by that term. So if you search for say #cats in the search in twitter, you will get all of the most recent tweets that have the #cats tag in them. It makes it really easy to make your tweets searchable and to keep track of trends.
4. Retweeting
Now this is a really cool thing that helps to spread a message like wild fire. Back around January, Digg.com's own Kevin Rose posted a how-to on retweeting:
RT" or "retweeting" is simply taking a twitter post from someone else and forwarding (rebroadcasting) it to your followers. Here are a few common ways to retweet a message (all do the same thing):
RT @originalsender: original message
retweet @originalsender: original message
retweeting @originalsender: original message
Retweeting can be a great way to add followers, as it pushes your @username into foreign social graphs, which in turn results in clicks back to your profile. Make sure to track your retweets using retweetist.
To retweet this post, type:
RT @kevinrose: Retweeting (RT) explained: http://tinyurl.com/whatisrt
Well that should do it. As you can see, using twitter is pretty straight forward and is really easy to pick up once you get going.
Firstly, we must clear up a common misconception. Whenever I talk about the use of twitter to other non twitter users all they do is complain and say "twitter is for losers. I don't want to know what you are doing every second of your life. I dont want to know that you just ate a sandwich." Yes, it is true that some people like to post what they are doing every second of their life. Heres a solution, just dont follow them. Which brings me to the first step in having a twitter account.
1). Follow people.
One of the benefits of twitter is following people to see what they are up to. The majority of people (or atleast according to the people that I follow) dont post stupid things every second of every day. But however, they do post things that I am interested in and give you a little insight to what they are up to. For example, Trent Reznor, the genius behind the popular band Nine Inch Nails, has been giving out free concert tickets and back stage passes this week for the up coming tour. Or maybe youre into Mythbusters. Both Grant Imahara and Adam Savage are constantly posting pictures from the Mythbusters set and answering questions from fans and followers. Thats just a small sample of who's out there if you don't have a ton of friends that are already on twitter.
2). The @reply ("at-reply").
The "at-reply" is a very simple concept. Someone tweets something interesting and you feel like responding, but how do you do it? Just simply type the '@' symbol and their username and then your message. When you tweet it, the at-reply will show up in the users feed as a response. For example if you type @seanmcgary *enter message here*, that message will show up in my @reply section of my twitter client. It's a really easy way to have conversations with people that you want others to see as well.
3. The hash tag - #
Now this is a newer feature that the developers over at twitter decided to add recently because so many people just started using it to make searching easier. The use of the hash tag is quite simple. If you throw the hash tag in front of some term or "tag", it will make your tweets searchable by that term. So if you search for say #cats in the search in twitter, you will get all of the most recent tweets that have the #cats tag in them. It makes it really easy to make your tweets searchable and to keep track of trends.
4. Retweeting
Now this is a really cool thing that helps to spread a message like wild fire. Back around January, Digg.com's own Kevin Rose posted a how-to on retweeting:
RT" or "retweeting" is simply taking a twitter post from someone else and forwarding (rebroadcasting) it to your followers. Here are a few common ways to retweet a message (all do the same thing):
RT @originalsender: original message
retweet @originalsender: original message
retweeting @originalsender: original message
Retweeting can be a great way to add followers, as it pushes your @username into foreign social graphs, which in turn results in clicks back to your profile. Make sure to track your retweets using retweetist.
To retweet this post, type:
RT @kevinrose: Retweeting (RT) explained: http://tinyurl.com/whatisrt
Well that should do it. As you can see, using twitter is pretty straight forward and is really easy to pick up once you get going.
