1994: The Beginner’s Guide to Twitter

Longtime supporter of this blog and regular commenter Jud joined Twitter recently, and seems to be at a bit of a loss as to what to do with it. I remember feeling much the same way when I first joined the site; it was quite some time before I got a feel for what it was all about and how it worked. So with that in mind, today’s entry is dedicated to Jud and anyone else who doesn’t understand what Twitter is, how it works and how to use it.

What is Twitter?

Twitter always used to position itself as a “microblogging” platform; a means for people to express themselves in deliberately short snippets of text: no more than 140 characters. Over time, it’s evolved, and can now be used for a lot of different things: as a means of staying up-to-date on topics that interest you; as a means of socialising with people who share your interests; as a means of staying in touch with friends; and as a means of yelling abuse at random strangers on the Internet.

The most important thing about Twitter is that it is a public means of communication. That means that anything you put on Twitter can be read by anyone on the Internet, and they don’t necessarily have to have a Twitter account to do so. There is the option to make your account “private” — which means only people who are already following you or people you specifically grant the ability to follow you after they request it can see your tweets — but using that kind of misses part of the appeal of the site, which is coming into contact with people you may not have otherwise “met”.

The best way of thinking of Twitter in metaphorical terms is that it’s a bit like being at a party, but a rather strange party where everyone present is constantly making speeches in the hope that someone will listen to them. Someone who follows you is someone who is listening to your speech; your tweets themselves make up the speech. This is the simplest possible use of Twitter; use it to express short snippets of thoughts and opinions into the world, and hope that someone, somewhere finds it interesting.

Key terms

• Timeline: the main screen you see on Twitter, consisting of all the tweets from people you are following. The most recent tweets are at the top, and as you scroll down the page you’ll see older and older tweets. The screen will keep scrolling forever in most circumstances, so don’t try and reach the bottom, otherwise you’ll be there all day.
• Tweet: A single 140-character public message that may or may not include mentions.
• Mention: A tweet that includes another user’s username.
• Direct Message: A private message between two or more Twitter users.
• Profile: An individual user’s Twitter page that shows just their tweets along with some brief biographical information they may have chosen to share. You can access any user’s profile by going to http://twitter.com/username, replacing username with the username of the user whose profile you would like to see. For example, to see my Twitter profile, you’d visit http://twitter.com/AstralFireIII.
• Avatar: (also “avi”) The small image a user uses to represent themselves on Twitter. The default avatar is an egg on a coloured background. Since a lot of people habitually ignore “egg avatars” as they’re a common sign of spammers, it’s best to put some form of personalised image here as soon as possible; it doesn’t have to be a picture of yourself.
• Banner: The large image that appears at the top of your profile.
• Follower: Someone who has chosen to follow you and have your tweets appear in their timeline.
• Mute: An option that allows you to stop seeing tweets from people or that contain particular terms without outright blocking them.
• Block: An option that prevents another user from interacting with you or seeing your tweets.
• Retweet: An option that allows you to reshare someone’s tweet onto your follower’s timelines (optionally with a comment of your own), even if they aren’t following the person you retweet.
• Livetweet: A slang terms used to describe someone using Twitter to provide “live” updates on a situation that is unfolding. Most commonly used during press conferences or big news events where things can be announced, revealed or happen dramatically and quickly.

How do I interact with people?

There are several ways you can do this:

• Mention: Also known as “@replies”, mentioning someone involves including the “at” (“@”) sign followed immediately by someone’s username somewhere in your tweet. If you do this, the recipient will receive a notification that you have mentioned them.

  Important to note about mentions is the fact that if you put the @username at the beginning of the tweet, only people who are following the recipient of your mention will see your mention in their timeline. If you want your reply to be more “public” and visible to everyone, even if they’re not the recipient, you can either put the @username elswhere in the tweet (at the end is common) or put something before the initial @username such as a full stop. The latter practice is often known as “dot-replying” and is considered bad form by some people.

  In our “party” context from earlier, this is like replying to someone’s public speech and having a public discussion that other people can overhear.

• Subtweet: I include this here only because people complain about it all the time. Subtweeting is a made-up word used to describe passive-aggressive tweets that don’t directly mention someone, but which are clearly and obviously about a particular person. While it’s delightfully easy to be passive-aggressive on Twitter, subtweeting is considered the height of bad form, so avoid it.

  In our “party” context, this is like making pointed comments about someone without actually mentioning them or talking directly to them. (“Someone should have looked in the mirror before coming out tonight!)

• Direct Message: Also known as a “DM”, a Direct Message is what you use if you want a private conversation with one or more other Twitter users. Direct Messages do not appear on your respective timelines, and instead appear in the Messages tab. To send a Direct Message to someone, either go to a user’s profile or the Messages tab.

  In our “party” context, this is like dragging someone off to the bathroom (or room of your choice) for a private conversation.

• Favourite: Clicking the “star” icon (it sometimes appears as a “heart” on some Twitter apps) under a tweet has a similar effect to the “like” button on Facebook. It’s an interaction that basically says “I like this” or “I want to keep track of this for later”. You can revisit your favourites from your own profile page, or look at other people’s favourites from theirs. Favourites are public!

  In our “party” context, this is like nodding approvingly at something someone has said. Alternatively, some people use it like making a note of something someone said to revisit later.

• Retweet: If you see a tweet you particularly like, agree with or just want to share for one reason or another, you can retweet it. This means it will appear in all your followers’ timelines, even if they don’t follow the person you retweeted. You can optionally add a comment to a retweet if you want to add your own thoughts on it.

  In our “party” context, this is like repeating something someone said to you earlier to someone else.

• Hashtags: Adding the hash sign (“#”) to a word (or cluster of words with no spaces) turns it into a hashtag, which your followers (and you!) are then able to click on to see other people talking about the same thing. This is most commonly used by marketers or communities who want to keep track of discussion on a given topic easily without having to follow hundreds of individual users. Some hashtags become mini-communities in their own right.

  In our “party” context, this is like all the jocks clustering in one corner and talking among themselves, all the nerds in another corner talking among themselves, and all the Game of Thrones fans sitting in another corner giving their own play-by-play commentaries of the episode that is currently on the television.

What else can I do on Twitter?

Besides following people and interacting with them via the means listed above, you can also group people (including those you aren’t following) into Lists, each of which then gets its own individual timeline — this is useful for collecting together things that you might want to keep track of, but don’t want to clutter your main timeline with.

There’s also a powerful search function that lets you look for users, hashtags, topics and even specific things people have said.

What should be the first things I do on Twitter?

• Update your profile. Make sure that you can be found (assuming you want to be found!) by including your name (or a known pseudonym you use) and some biographical information, optionally including your location.
• Add an avatar. Egg avatars are habitually ignored, so put a new picture in as soon as possible. Go to your profile and hit the Edit button and it’s simple to do.
• Follow some people. Twitter is made for socialising, so follow some people you find interesting or want to stay in touch with. Don’t feel obliged to follow all the people they follow, because you may have different interests. Instead, over time, gradually curate your following list until your timeline looks the way you want it to.
• Interact with people. People won’t follow you back unless you give them a reason to. Interact with them, talk with them, engage with the things they’re saying.
• Try not to get into any fights. Twitter’s brevity is a blessing and a curse; the 140-character limit protects against waffling somewhat (though many people get around this by simply chaining long strings of tweets together by replying to themselves) but this also means that, on occasion, certain nuances can be lost. Discussions on contentious subjects can escalate quickly!
• Gratuitous self-promotion. Twitter is used by a lot of people as an important means of getting their work in front of as many people as possible. Don’t be afraid to link to things you’ve written or otherwise produced that you particularly want people to take a look at.
• Enjoy! Twitter can and should be fun and useful. If it’s not, though, don’t worry! Some people simply don’t get along with it as a means of communication and happily go about their lives without it. Follow the tips above, though, and you should be getting the most out of it in no time.