Tips for the Twitter-curious 4. Getting-by in Twitter-speak.

Hello hello.

Welcome to Round 4 of Tips for the Twitter-curious! If you don't know what that is, or you just want to catch-up on the previous lessons, they're all listed here.

After a whole weekend to digest the content and to experiment with the ideas I've offered up so far, tell me ... are you still curious?

• is that curious-terrified or curious-brave?
• Or are you like @gingersburns who said she used to curious-skeptical but has lost the skepticism after reading my first post [You see!! I could have been a lawyer after all!!]
• Are you already Tweeting away like a canary?
• An old-Tweeter-learning-new-tricks?
• Or are you still a-firm-anti-Tweeter? What? Still??!!!

If I've still not whetted your Twittter whistle [trying saying that fast 3 times!] then the classes on Wednesday and Friday are definitely going to be worth dropping in for. I'll be going all-out [again!] to detail how Twitter can be used for some far more practical purposes than you might expect. I'm hoping to demonstrate how time spent on Twitter really needn't be [entirely] a frivolous frippery or a waste of your free-time. But that's for the days to come ...

Today were adding to the Twitter-vocabulary we've built up over the first 3 classes:

We've already run into some strange new terms and forms of grammar in previous lessons, such as:

• the all-important grappling with @mentions and Timelines from Lesson 2; and ...
• how and when to use the #ff hashtag from Lesson 3.

So let's now add-in a few more items to your Conversational-Twitterish phrase book! Starting with RTs ...

RTs - ReTweeting - or 'sharing the love'!

Retweeting is an easy way to share something with others;

• This could be anything from a tweet which made you laugh to one with something you can help spread the word about;

Retweet anything you think deserves a wider audience or which helps someone out:

• A question which someone needs answering stands more chance the more people pass it on by RTing;
• A link to a friend's shop can drive new traffic in their direction; and ...
• An event you think your followers will be interested in reaches the right pairs of eyes!

Beneath the tweet you want to share simply click Retweet and then everyone who Follows you will see it in their Timeline:

When people you are Following retweet something it's a good way for you to:

• Build your network - people often retweet things by their friends. If you like the sound of their tweets - follow them too;
• Expand your knowledge of the kind of people on Twitter - you'll see Retweets featuring people you never knew were on there! Once you know ... you can Follow them too!
• Gain a broader picture of the personality of someone you Follow - based on the kind of things they Retweet you get to see what's important to them.

You can even see if anyone's RTd anything of yours under the Retweets tab on your Homepage!

Retweeting is definitely a useful tool to create a feeling that you're part of a broader conversation and is a simple way to show solidarity and support to others too.

Let's move on now to the hashtag ...

What's a hashtag and why should I use one?
The use of a hashtag is, like conquering the use of Lists and remembering to check your @Mentions page, another of the ways you can filter down the abundance of information on Twitter in order to focus on one simplified aspect. But what is one?

• At it's most basic a Twitter hashtag is any phrase or word which has a '#' or 'hash' symbol in front of it.
• Take, for example '#twittercurious' the hashtag I've been using whenever I refer to my class:

• Anytime you use the '#' symbol before a word, you turn that word into an active link;
• Clicking on the link will leadyou to a filtered list of all the times that specific hashtag has been used;

This is useful if you want to be in-the-loop and chat with lots of people about the same thing - so long as everyone uses the exact same hashtag and adds it to their tweet. For example:

• People wrting about the new products etc featured at The Craft & Hobby Show in LA have been using the #CHA or #CHAshow hashtag to mark their messages;
• Then anyone wanting to read about the same things can just click and see the whole gamut of CHA-themed tweets!

One amazing practical use for this is in exploiting the filtered Timeline you get by clicking on a certain hashtag ... to hold your own live web-chats like those organised by crafterminds.com site:

To hold your own similar live chat all you need to do is:

• Agree on the hashtag you're all going to use;
• Set a date and time;
• Sit down > tweet > include the hashtag each time;
• Click the hashtag > go to the full list - which is ever-updating with new tweets;
• Have a whole [free, inclusive] back and forth conversation!

There's actually another, less easy to explain, way in which people use hashtags in tweets which I'm going to try to find words to describe in next Monday's [7th Feb] post about what I'm calling 'the artistry' of Twitter!

Until then let's look at 'Trending' which is where the use of hashtags becomes evident.

Trending
On your Homepage you'll see a list of things the most popular topics being tweeted about right here, right now:

Notice how many of them feature the # showing how people are talking about the same topic, using the same hashtag and joining in a inter/national conversation to the extent that it becomes one of the most popular topics on twitter at that moment in time.

While many of these popular hashtag conversations are nonsense, just for fun memes ... I'm relieved to say that the Trends list can also show evidence of more serious concerns and is, believe it or not, a good place to pick up on breaking news.

Many times now I've spotted a name or phrase trending and wondered 'Why are people talking about that right now? What's happened?'. Once I click on it you get taken to a page containing all the tweets mentioning that phrase and can discover what's happening ... then I often hop over to the BBC News page for the full story.

Again, as I've been pointing out during these lessons, it's yet another way in which Twitter brings the information directly to YOU!

Favourites
OK so the term 'favourites' isn't that hard for a non-Twitter-speaker to have grasped ... so I mention it only to bring it to your attention:

The majority of the tweets I've added to my favourites are ones which have made me laugh - which is why I want to keep them in easy reach. [And after a quick skim through them now just to check ... I've also realised that many of them are ones I've written myself ... so ... I admit it, I make myself laugh ... there's no shame in that! I hope.]

But besides the narcissitic possibilities of laughing at your own jokes ... you can use the Favourites function as:

• a noticeboard to pin tweets containing useful / interesting links to - so you can refer back to them later when you've got more time;
• A diary, to store imprtant tweets with special dates or upcoming events in;
• A place for tweets which you plan to use as prompts for future pieces of writing or to lift directly to add on a scrapbook or art journal page etc [On Thursday I'll share a few scrapbooking pages I've made which were based around Tweets];

OK, today's homework is pretty self-evident:

1. Retweet something you feel is worth sharing;
2. If you tweet about this class, include the #twittercurious hashtag in there;
3. Cast your eye over what's Trending where you are; and ...
4. If there's anything appropriate, Favourite something - it's just as easy to 'un-favourite' it later so don't worry about making any permanent grand statements with what you choose!

Right then, that's all for today.

Tomorrow will be my first 'Month in Numbers' post of the new year marking a whole year of recording my months in statistics and photos. [If you're new here and want to see what I'm talking about have a peek here.] As usual ... the invitation is there if you wish to join in ... I know at least one of the Twitter-curious is intending to do just that!

I'll see you then then.

Julie

Tips for the Twitter-curious. 2: A Guided Tour of Twitter.

Hello.

Welcome to Day 2 of 'Tips for the Twitter-curious' . If the powers of persuasion I deployed in my 'Making a Case for Twitter' post have worked ... then by now you should have:

• Chosen your username and hopped off to sign-up and added a profile photo and background image;

OR ...

• Logged back in to a neglected account;

OR at the very least:

• begun to consider that there's more to this Twittering lark than you first assumed and are quietly awaiting further coersion ... which is precisely what I'm here for!

In Lesson 3 [on Friday 28th] I'll be de-bunking perhaps the biggest misconception people might have about using Twitter by explaining how you can happily use Twitter without ever having to tweet anything yourself! But that's for Friday ...

... until then I'm 100% focussed on those of you who really do want to start tweeting but who are a little unsure of where to start:

In today's lesson I'm going to assume:

• that you know nothing at all about the Twitter site;
• that it's layout is a confusing foreign land;
• and that its labels, links and buttons mean absolutely nothing to you.

If this isn't you - and you're a fully-fledged tweeter already - then instead, send a link to this post to someone in your life who you would like to take up tweeting ... and allow me to guide them around on your behalf!

Allow me to escort you around:

If you haven't already signed up to Twitter, then just treat this guide as a glimpse into all the main functions of the site - without having to try it out for yourself.

But if you have signed-up then open up another window in your browser now, so you can flick between my guide and your Twitter pages, to test out the tips in real-time as I walk you through it.

Right then, let's begin from home ...

Home:

• Once you've logged-in to Twitter you will spend the majority of your time reading and working from out of your Home page:

There is nothing on there which is private, however only you see that specific page. Every Twitter user's Home page displays only the things specific to their own account.

• Amongst other things, the Home tab houses the lists of people who follow you along with the people you follow. And the Timeline ...

Timeline:

• The Timeline is the list of tweets written by people you have chosen to follow.
• It's in chronological order with the most recent posts at the top.

Home and Timeline are the 2 main places where you'll deal with other people on Twitter.

Now let's move on to you for a moment.

Profile:

Clicking on to the Profile tab takes you to a page displaying a list of all the tweets that you have ever written:

• This is also the page that anyone who clicks on a link to your Twitter profile sees.
• If you have a web-address you'd like to direct people to, make sure it's in your profile.
• This is also where your short bio is displayed. Unusually for me, my Twitter bio is one of the few things online which I've never rewritten or fiddled with!

• NB:[If you only want specific people to see your tweets you can secure your account so only people who you allow can view them].

Speaking of tweets ... are you ready to try writing one yet?

Tweeting:

• To Tweet you need to click back into the Home tab view.

• You only have 140 typed characters to write your message - that includes all punctuation and blank spaces ... so type wisely;
• The grey number in the bottom right counts down to show you how many you have left to play with.

As you get used to the format you'll begin to find ways to shorten what it is you want to say so that it all fits in.

As someone who loves words and language I relish the constraint and love seeing how I can condense an entire train of thought into a single succinct 140-character packet.

But if, unlike me, that's not really the kind of thing you do for kicks ...

• ... don't worry if you can't fit everything into that limit at first, just write two tweets in a row!

Chances are, once you begin tweeting and following people [which I'll go into in more detail on Friday 28th] pretty soon, you'll want to aim a tweet directly towards someone in particular and they'll start tweeting directly to you too.

Here's where the @ symbol is vital.

@Mentions:

• Whenever you want to talk directly to someone specific - or mention them in any way in a tweet you simply type in @ plus their username into your tweet.
• You can @mention any number of people in one Tweet.
• If they are someone who follows you, they might just happen to notice your message in their regular Timeline at the time you tweeted it.
• And it works vice versa too - someone may mention your name in a tweet, and you just might be in the right spot at the right time to notice it, or you spot it when you scroll down through the older tweets in your Timeline.

However this is not the efficient method of doing things!

To begin with, if the person you @mentioned doesn't follow you they will not see your tweets in their timeline. And you won't see your name @mentioned by anyone you don't follow ... unless you:

• Instead - you click on the @Mentions tab to see ALL the occasions where your name has been mentioned, right across Twitter, not just amongst people you follow.
• This is how you can get the attention of anyone on Twitter.
• As long as you use the @username method, they will see your message under their personal @Mentions tab.

But what if you want to write something a little more private?

Messages:

In 'old Twitter' - the version before the current interface, these were known as 'Direct Messages' which probably explains them a little more obviously.

• Click the Messages tab to where you can write a message which will only be sent to the single person you select.

• This message will not appear in their Timeline, rather it will go to their Messages folder, avsilable from clicking the Messages tab.
• You can only send a direct messages to a mutual contact ie. a person who you Follow AND who is Following you in return;
• It's more private than a general tweet - and is sometimes easier to do than turning to your email etc once you're already logged on and using Twitter.
• That said, I only use them occasionally.

I think our tour of the most interesting Twitter landmarks is heading toward the end. There's just time for a few more mundane, but important, places first:

Settings:

• Clicking the Settings tab takes you to your behind-the-scenes account pages.

• From here you can do things such as change your password, alter your profile photo and connect your mobile phone to your account. Then you too can tweet from the bus / train / waiting room like so many others do!

You can actually tailor all the settings so you can choose to receive text messages when you're tweeted at or when someone directly messages you etc. Just see what works best for you.

If you're still a Twitter-virgin your homework today is:

• To consider just trying it out.

After all it is free and you've got the shiny, full-colour guide above to help you now!

• If you're still unsure if it's really something you want to take-on then you could even set up an account and not mention a word of it to anyone if it feels like too much pressure!

If you've already signed-up or are a still a relatively new user:

• Go back over everything you've just read;
• Take the tour again on your own and click on all those areas I've covered;

Then ...

• Write a general tweet, about anything at all;
• Write a tweet which mentions someone else using the @username method.

And that's all for today's class, thanks for attending!

I'm going to let you rest-up now ... you're going to need your energies for when we start following people on Friday!

Julie :-)

p.s: Remember to contact me via the comments section below or via Twitter itself, if you want to be added to the Twitter-curious list.

I'm not automatically adding all my new followers to the list in case they've followed me for a different reason ... [What? there might be other reasons ...].