Twitter, like Facebook has become so much a part of our news and culture. There always seems to be a noteworthy or troublesome tweet that catches the news media’s attention. Celebrities, politicians, and brands use Twitter attempting to capture our attention. And now with Twitter’s impending IPO, Twitter is the news more than ever.
You don’t have to feel left out if you don’t tweet, as you don’t need a Twitter account to see who is tweeting about what, catch up on what’s trending, and view the most popular hashtags. Lost? If you are unfamiliar to the world of Twitter, just a few definitions will get you going.
Tweet – a post on Twitter, up to 140 characters. Since a post is so short it will likely contain one or more links to more information.
Follow – when you follow someone (or something) on Twitter, you receive their tweets on your homepage, also known as your Twitter timeline.
Hashtag – a word or group of words (no spaces) preceded by the # symbol, creating a keyword which can be used as a link to other posts using that hashtag (e.g., #ilovepretzels).
Trending – the most popular topics being tweeted about.
@ – used before a person’s name, is a link to that person’s profile.
Retweet (RT) – forwarding of another’s Tweet, so that your followers can see it.
Yes, you can go to twitter.com, and create an account, and start following people to see their daily tweets. But you can also just use a search engine, type in the name of the person or business or entity you are interested in followed by “twitter” (e.g., Vatican twitter). From your search results, click on the link that has twitter.com/ and you should land on the twitter page for that which you’ve searched. You can also go to twitter.com/twitter (which is twitter’s own page) and then enter what you are looking for in the search area at the top of the page.
Scroll down a bit and you will find Trending Topics in the lower left side of the page, click on any to see the multitude of tweets on that topic. You will most likely be viewing Worldwide trends, but you can easily change to a specific location by clicking on “Change” and setting a desired location.
If you are a news junkie you’ll love Twitter. National, local, and cable news stations can be found on Twitter. It is a great way to keep up on the news, especially to find out about something that is happening at the moment.
Aside from keeping up with the news, or your favorite celebrity or politician, ways to use Twitter continue to grow. Companies are tweeting job opportunities, teachers are tweeting homework assignments. People tweet about the TV programs they are watching as they are being watched.
Twitter confirmed the Long Island Earthquake in 2011 for me as I sat in my office, desk shaking, doors swaying, but truthfully I don’t use it very often. If you do use Twitter, I’d love to hear how and why you use it.
Jeri Usbay 