Twitter: What Does It All Mean?

Since 2008, Twitter has steadily become one of the most used tools for conversation, trending topics, events and most recently – a source for news, political platforms, and an unprecedented direct access to celebrity and public figures.

If you’re not very active on Twitter, you may feel a bit underwhelmed – I know I did when I first joined. What is the big deal anyway? Isn’t it just a bunch of people telling us what they’re eating and where their next vacation is? Well – yes, sometimes but the success of Twitter lies in the vast capability of broadcasting to people that already share the same interests, ideas and people and businesses like you. In other words, your audience finds you – not the other way around as it used to be.

In another post, we’ll be talking about several uses for Twitter including for business, and you may want to take a look at this post we created on just what kinds of tweets you should be making to keep relevant and well-rounded. But for now, let’s explore what all those symbols and hashtag things are all about.

TWITTER TERMS

1.     The @handle (username)

Everyone that uses Twitter has a username. In order to include people or companies in the conversation, you must “tag” them on your tweet preceded with an @ symbol. For example, “We’re having a blast learning #socialmedia with @fuzz today!” (@fuzz) is my account, so I’ll get a notification that you were talking about me. This also makes it very likely I’ll reply or “re-tweet” your post – gaining us both more attention.

2.     The #hashtag

Twitter is all about conversations happening in any given moment. The hashtag symbol # followed by a word, or group of connected words makes them trackable and includes that topic in a group of others that may be discussing the same topic.

If a topic of interest is appearing with a large amount of people, it is considered a “trending” topic and more likely to appear in searches and the new “moments” feature Twitter just launched. In our earlier example, “We’re having a blast learning #socialmedia with @fuzz today!” – anyone searching about #socialmedia would see our tweet along with all of the others. It’s a great way to put your topic or industry in the front of the line.

3.     Tweet

One writes a letter for the mail, an e-mail message for your inbox, and a “tweet” on Twitter. This is the message you will send out to the world at any given moment. The format is usually on the more casual side, and you only have 140 characters to say what you want to say. The micro-blogging platform allows a lot of information and conversations to be seen at one time. Imagine entering a cocktail party, and hearing part of a conversation here, part of one there  and when you hear something that interests you, you can stay a bit longer to hear more. Twitter is very similar.

4.     Follow

With over 300 million active users per month, things can get a little noisy. To help focus what kind of tweets you’d like to see, or to keep track of certain companies or people you can “follow” them. The more people follow you, the bigger your audience becomes. Following is usually a two-way street in the Twitter verse. Imagine exchanging phone numbers at that cocktail party. It would be kind of rude to only ask for one and not give one in return.

This should help get you started – so go out there and start listening and joining the conversations!

Happy Tweeting!

Justin