Twitter Basics Getting Started using Twitter

Instructional Innovation, Teaching & Learning Center, East Peoria Campus - 240A 1

Twitter http://www.twitter.com is a microblogging service that creates a social network of users that can publish an online message in a maximum of a 140 characters. Setting up a Twitter Account

1. Go to http://twitter.com/ and select the yellow button on the right hand of your screen, or simply navigate to https://twitter.com/signup.

2. The first field is your real name. One way others can find you on Twitter is searching your name. 3. Enter a Username. Try to pick a username that is descriptive and unique to you. This will be the name

your followers use when sending @replies, direct messages, or retweets. It will also form the URL of your twitter page. A preview of that URL is shown below the entry field.

4. Next, enter a password. 5. Once you have entered a sufficiently strong password, please provide an email address. The email

address is used to confirm your account before you can finish the signup process. You can determine whether or not you want to allow others to find you on twitter by searching for your email address.

6. Next, twitter will try to make suggestions of profiles you should follow to help you build your network. Each time you select an interest, a list of suggested users is generated. Clicking the 'follow' button next to a user's name will add them to the list of users you are following.

7. Twitter will also prompt you to log into gmail, yahoo, and AOL. Twitter is scanning your contacts lists and if it finds an email address that is associated with a twitter profile it returns that profile to you and you can choose to follow it or not. It’s another way of helping you build your twitter network. Twitter does not retain the log in information for those accounts.

8. Twitter will offer you a screen to invite others in your accounts not on twitter to join. You can skip this step by clicking cancel.

9. The last page gives you an opportunity to search for someone specific on twitter. You can click the blue Next Step button to finish.

Setting up Your Mobile Devices for Twitter Twitter is portable. Most people connect their twitter account to their mobile device. Using Twitter via SMS allows you to pick and choose which updates you want from those you follow, so you can get mobile updates from the accounts that matter most to your life on-the-go.

1.) Sign in to your account and click the Settings link. Click the Mobile link. 2.) Enter your mobile number (you may want to unclick let other find me by my number). 3.) Click Start. You’ll be directed to send a text message with the word Go to a specific twitter number. After twitter

receives this confirmation text message, you’ll be able to use twitter with your phone. You can send text messages to your twitter code to post tweets to your account.

4.) Clicking the phone icon to “ON” or “OFF” on a users profile page or your followers page sets Tweet notifications for that user.

Using Twitter To modify your twitter account, click on the Settings link.

• From Account you can change basic information, language settings, username, privacy and location. • Notices allows you to indicate when you want to receive email about twitter activity. • Profile is the information that appears on your public page, upload a picture, add a bio and more. • Design lets you customize the graphics and color scheme or your twitter page. • Connections displays any other web applications you’ve allowed to access your twitter account.

Twitter Basics Getting Started using Twitter

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Twitter Language Twitter has its own terminology, while you don’t need to know everything it helps to know a few basic terms to get started. You can find more twitter terminology by clicking on the Twitter Glossary in the help section.

Timeline When you log in to twitter, your timeline appears on your homepage. It is the stream of all tweets by those you are following. Newest messages are at the top. You can interact with any message by hovering over the message and clicking the retweet or reply links in the bottom right corner of the tweet. Replies and Mentions To reply to someone type @Username and your message. You can also click the Reply link in the bottom right corner of any tweet on your Twitter home page. The tweet will appear in the user’s reply tab, if they follow you, it’ll appear on their Twitter home page, also. Or to mention someone type @username anywhere in the message. If the person you mention is following your account, your message will appear directly on his Twitter home page. (If he’s not following your account, your message will appear in his folder of @username mentions.)

Tip: On Twitter, @username automatically becomes a link to that person’s account—helping people discover each other on the system. Put another way: when you see an @username, you can always click through to that person’s Twitter page to see if it’s someone you’d like to follow.

Direct Messages (DM) Private Twitter Messages

These tweets appear on your home page under the Direct Messages tab, and if you’ve got email notifications turned on, you’ll also get an email message when somebody DMs you. DMs don’t appear in either person’s public timeline or in search results. No one but you can see your DMs.

Tip The one tricky concept with DMs is that you can send them only to people who are following you. Conversely, you can receive them only from people you’re following.

Retweet (RT)

Repost a tweet from someone you are following, so your followers can see it.. Retweeting is common, and it’s a form of conversation on Twitter. It’s also a powerful way to spread messages and ideas across Twitter quickly. So when you do it, you’re engaging in a way people recognize and usually like—making it a good way to connect. To Retweet a message, start your tweet with RT@username and the original message. On your twitter home page, roll over a tweet and you’ll see a “Retweet” link in the bottom right corner, click and click yes again to automatically post it.

A few terms to get started: • Direct Message (DM) – You can send a private message to anyone that is following you. • Follow - To follow someone on Twitter means to subscribe to their Tweets or updates on the site. • Reply – A Tweet posted in reply to another user's message, usually posted by clicking the "reply" button next to their

Tweet in your timeline. Always begins with @username. • Retweet – A Tweet by another user, forwarded to you by someone you follow. Often used to spread news or share

valuable findings on Twitter. • Tweet (verb) - Tweet, Tweeting, Tweeted. The act of posting a message, often called a "Tweet", on Twitter. • Tweet (noun) - A message posted via Twitter containing 140 characters or fewer. • Unfollow - To cease following another Twitter user. Their Tweets no longer show up in your home timeline.

Twitter Basics Getting Started using Twitter

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Hashtag (#)

Twitter messages don’t have a field where you can categorize them. So users have created the hashtag—which is just the # symbol followed by a term describing or naming the topic—that you add to a post as a way of saying, “This message is about the same thing as other messages from other people who include the same hashtag.” When a user searches for that hashtag, they’ll get all of the tweets including that hashtag. Many conferences, events and organizations will ask you to include a specific hashtag when tweeting about them.

Finding and Following Others Following others simply means you’d like to receive their tweets on your timeline. There is no etiquette to following someone. If a twitter profiles is public, they want followers. If a twitter profile is private, when you click follow, you’ll be notified that a request to follow has been sent to the user. The user then has to click accept or ignore for each request. To find others:

1.) Click the Find People link at the top right of the page and enter a full name, username or email. 2.) Ask your friends for their twitter name and go to their url twitter.com/ their username. 3.) Go to the twitter page of someone you are following and click the view all link under the Following section in the

side bar on their page. You’ll see a list of everyone they follow. Click on the username to see their page, review their tweets to see if its someone you’d like to follow.

4.) Visit your favorite websites and blogs and look for the “Follow us on Twitter” link. To follow others: On their twitter page, you’ll see a follow button directly under their username and picture. Just click the “Follow” button. Posting your First Tweet

Twitter is excellent for discovering new information. Some people use twitter only to discover new information and resources from those they follow. Tweeting in optional. To get started tweeting, first observer some the users you follow. The easiest way to create your first tweet is to just click retweet and post a good tweet from someone you follow. Clicking reply on a tweet is a good way to get started also.

retweet

retweet

reply hashtag

Twitter Basics Getting Started using Twitter

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Twitter Tips for Getting Started:

• Think about how you want to use twitter, professional, personal (for family and friends), or for a hobby. That will help you determine the type of people to follow and the types of things you’ll tweet about.

o There is nothing wrong with setting up multiple twitter accounts for different purposes. Many people have a professional public twitter account and personal private twitter account.

• Build your network; that is where the value of twitter lies. Follow lots of people but be selective about who you follow. Remember there is nothing wrong with choosing to unfollow someone.

• Go to the page of people you are following and browse through the list of people they are following. Often someone you are following with common interest that has been using twitter for a while will have a valuable list of resourceful people for you to follow. It is a great way to build your network.

• Use a twitter application to post tweets. Most automatically shorten urls, make it easier to include video and photos, reply and retweet.

Twitter Tools and Applications There are tons of applications for twitter. You might hear them called “tools, add-ons, apps,etc…” Applications make twitter easier to use. Especially if you’re using twitter with a mobile device and have the ability to download and use an app, it’ll make twitter much more useful. Windows 7 Twitter Gadget If you are a Windows 7 user, you can download a desktop gadget for twitter. It is a small panel that stays on your desktop and will display a live stream of your tweets.

1. Right-click on the desktop, and click Gadgets from on the shortcut menu. 2. Click Get more gadgets online 3. Scroll down below the Featured Gadgets and Top Downloads and click on the Get More Desktop Gadgets link. 4. You should see a search box near the top of the page. Type twitter in the search box, and hit the Gallery button

to search for twitter gadgets. 5. You should see Twitter Explorer among the various other twitter gadgets that are available. Click the download

button for twitter explorer 6. When the download is complete click open.

TweetDeck - http://www.tweetdeck.com/ A desktop dashboard for twitter. Easily receive your tweets in real-time on your desktop or mobile app. Manage and post to multiple social accounts. See your direct message and replies. Follow a certain hashtag. Tweet with automatic shortened urls. Download desktop version for Mac, PC or Linux, iphone and ipad versions.