twitter concepts

Submitted by gwen on Saturday, November 3, 2012.
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hello. i was very glad to see the app on tweetlist, which i do use, but my use of twitter is very limited. all i do is follow various sites, such as applevis, southeastern guide dogs, serotek and others. i cannot wrap my head around the whole twitter thing. i don't get the concept of tweeting, retweeting, and some of the other functions discussed in the app. is there a really good book that anyone can recommend for getting the whole twitter thing down so it does not fly past me. thanks. maybe i am getting too old for this stuff!!!

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Submitted by Thomas Stivers on Tuesday, November 6, 2012

I'd be surprised if there is enough about Twitter to fill a book, but you never know. Also the way people use Twitter changes so fast it would be hard for a book, even an ebook, to keep up. Here are some of the tips I have learned about the ways people are currently using Twitter.
  1. A mention is any time you put an at sign before a user name anywhere in a tweet.
  2. A reply, which is only visible to you, the person to whom you are replying, and to people following both of you, is any tweet that begins with @username. Replies are public and you can reply to anyone even if they don't follow you.
  3. A direct message or DM is a private message which only you and the person you send it to can see. The sender and recipient of a DM must both follow each other.
  4. A retweet is just forwarding a tweet to your followers. You can retweet just the tweet you received usually indicated by RT @username: or you can retweet with a comment often indicated by MT @username: for modified tweet.
  5. Hash tags are any word or phrase, with dashes not spaces, preceeded by a hash mark or number sign (#). Hash tags are used so that you can search for a topic and see all the tweets about that topic regardless of whether or not you follow the people tweeting.
  6. One of the newest habits I've seen is atributions with the caret (^) sign on accounts handled by multiple people. It is typically the initials of the person tweeting preceeded by ^ at the end of the tweet. For example ^TS.
This is all of the Twitter rules of the road I can think of at the moment. I think it seems much more confusing than it is. Basically just follow people who you think say interesting things, and try to say interesting things yourself. Mostly have fun! @stivers_t