Learning the Twitter Lingo
Hopefully by now you have chosen a username for your Twitter account. Feel free to add your username to the comment section below. As I stated last week, this series will (1) show you how to use the platform and (2) introduce tools you can use.
Twitter Lingo
Twitter has its own language, but it’s real easy to pick-up on. You are allowed to send (or tweet) 140 characters. This is the perfect platform to put writing skills to work because you want to say something meaningful to encourage people to follow you in as few words as possible.
Following/Followers – In the upper right hand corner of your profile, you will see the number of people you follow and those who follow you. I will talk more about this “relationship” process in next week’s post.
Tweet – The sent message
Twittering – Sending a Twitter message.
Tweeple or Tweeps- A word that describes people who use or who are on twitter.
@username – If you want communicate with a twitter user, generally you would send them a message or reply to their message. Whenever you use the @ symbol, your communication will be viewed on the public timeline.
Example: To reply to me at tywebbin, type …
@tywebbin add your 140 character message
If you are on the Twitter site, you can click “@username” in the right side bar to view all the tweets that mention your twitter username. This is probably the easiest way to keep up with conversation directed to you especially as your follow list grows.
Direct Messages (DM) - Direct messages are private and will not show up on the main timeline. If you are on the Twitter site, you can click the “Direct Messages” in the right side bar so can view and send a private message. You can also place a “d” at the beginning of the twitter username.
Example: To DM me at tywebbin, type…
d tywebbin add your 140 character message
I’m going to stop here a make a note about direct messages. I like to have DM’s emailed to me. Some of the dm’s I receive require immediate attention. You can also choose to have DM’s and other tweets sent to you via your mobile phone.
Do be careful because you don’t want to OVERFLOW your inbox or text messaging with tweets.
Retweet – A Twitter user resends another Twitter users’ message
Example: RT @tywebbin says thanks for taking the class.
Last year, Twitter added a feature that makes it even easier to Retweet. This new feature is very helpful because you want to know who has passed on your messages. Networking opportunities arise when you can connect with someone who likes what you are tweeting enough to pass it along.
