TWITTER BASICS PCNA: Signing up, tweeting, following, & hash-tagging on Twitter

HEY’O  This is going to be a fairly basic tutorial. In case you have yet to jump on the Twitter bandwagon yet – or you are unsure of what it really even is, we will cover the following Twitter Basics:  What is it?  How Do I Signup?  What is ‘Following’ & ‘Tweeting’?  What are ‘Hashtags’?  What is ‘Retweeting’? On we go…

SO, WHAT IS TWITTER?  Twitter is an online website & smartphone app. It is what's called a “microblogging” service.  You can think of microblogging as similar to when you update your status on Facebook – but being limited to typing 140 characters per update – each updated you post is called a “Tweet” (more on that later)  You can “follow” other people, companies, & celebrities on Twitter (more on that later as well)

HOW DO I SIGNUP?  It’s easy! You can either head to their website at twitter.com, or, if you have a iPhone, iPod, iPad, android device, windows 8 tablet, or blackberry – go to the respective “app store” and download the app from there.  If you signup on the computer it will look like this: Just fill out the form Then click “Sign up for Twitter”

WHAT IS ‘FOLLOWING’ & ‘TWEETING’?  After you fill out the form and click “Signup” – twitter will ask you to follow at least 5 people. These could be friends, celebrities, or also websites/companies that you like. (You can follow more at any time by using the search bar)  Following works like this – if you follow someone, everything they tweet will show up on your “Home” tab – which, for reference, is comparable to the News Feed on Facebook, they can then follow you back, if they are interested in what you tweet.  A ‘tweet’, is simply twitter’s bird friendly name for a microblog post. Every time you make a post (up to 140 characters long) it is called a tweet. All of your tweets, and the tweets from people you follow show up on your “Home” tab. For reference, this similar to what Facebook calls your news feed. To compose a new tweet on the computer, use the box on the left of your screen. On a phone, click the square with a feather in it in the top right corner.

WHAT ARE ‘HASHTAGS’?  You can add hashtags to a tweet. Hashtags are the number sign (#) followed by a word, or multiple words (without spaces)  What are they for?  Suppose I was posting about my dachshund. If I add the tags #dog and #dachshund anywhere in my tweet something neat happens:  Anyone on Twitter that uses the search bar to enter the word “dog” or “dachshund” will see all tweets by everyone that have been tagged with those words, including my own of course.  Some people also use hashtags as a way to emphasis a point in their tweet: See the below example. Note that you can also add a photo and/or a location to your tweet.

RETWEETING & MORE  If you see a tweet someone else posted and you like it, you can press the retweet button. This will then add that tweet to your home feed, and everyone that follows you will see that tweet with a “retweeted by Jaiden” caption above it. A few more unrelated tips:  You can view your profile & all the tweets you have ever tweeted by clicking on the “Me” tab.  Clicking on the “Connect” tab shows everyone who has recently mentioned you in their tweets (you can do this also by using symbol followed by their twitter username) along with people who have recently followed you, or favorited one of your tweets using the little star icon found on each tweet.  The Discover tab shows things to you that Twitter thinks are relevant to you.

THAT’S A WRAP  Those are all the basics to Twitter!  One final thing to mention, is that by clicking on the settings gear & then clicking “edit profile”, will give you the option to upload a cover photo, profile photo, & add a bio.  Feel free to post on our Facebook Group if you still have any questions!  Our Facebook Group ( Our Facebook Group Jaiden Leach THANKS! || PCNA 2013