Twitter is a social media site that lets people share information in very small chunks (140 characters or less)
Features
Let people know about what’s going on
Examples: news, sports scores, details of an event
Learn about what others are doing or are interested in
Terminology
Tweet: A verb, defined as the act of posting a message
Retweet: Also known as “RT,” it allows you to forward a tweet to your followers
Follow: To subscribe to a user’s Tweets or updates
Reply: A tweet posted in reply to another user’s message, always begins with @username
Hash Tag: Defined by #, it is utilized in order to identify topics or keywords
Getting started
On a desktop, laptop, or a mobile device just go to twitter.com and set up an account
Type 140 characters or less
When you tweet, followers will see @your_username and will therefore know that a specific post is yours
Create a hash tag (#) to create a Twitter feed focused on a specific topic or organization; to mark keywords or topics, add a hash-tag to the tweet (check first to see if hash-tag is already in use)
Tweet “Follow this event/topic on Twitter,” followed by the hash-tag of the event (such as #OIRTShowcase2012) to advertise the existence of a hash-tag in order to attract more people to follow and participate in the discussion
Following / Replying
Use TweetDeck – a Twitter application that allows users to send and receive tweets and view profiles – on your desktop, laptop, or mobile device to reply publicly or privately
To follow, search a person’s name and click Follow
To participate in a Twitter feed focused on a specific topic or organization, find its hash tag
