Twitter 101tweet Notes

An individual message is called a tweet.

Can be used as a verb: “I tweeted about the stimulus package this morning.” Alternative is “twittering.”

Alternatives include “post,” “message” and “update.”

Maximum length is 140 characters per tweet.

follower or following

Follow other people and companies to receive their tweets as they post.

Conversely, people get your messages by following you.

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Shortened URLS Notes

URLs use up many of the 140 allowed characters.

Links posted on Twitter via the website are automatically shortened.

Many services take regular links and shrink them down to a manageable length and even let you track clicks.

You can’t tell what they link to, so click with caution.

Samples: bit.ly, tinyurl.com, ow.ly, tr.im, su.pr

Lists

Twitter Lists are created and maintained by Twitter users.

You can create your own or follow lists created by others.

It can be overwhelming to follow everyone in one timeline, lists can help manage information.

A way to organize feeds you want to follow:

o follow people without adding them to your home page

o follow topics instead of individuals

When looking at a user’s profile, click on the Lists icon to add them to a list.

Listorious is a directory of Twitter lists.

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Direct Message (DM) Notes

Direct messages (DMs) are private – only the sender and receiver can see them.

DMs are on your home page under the Direct Messages tab

Can only DM people who are following you. Conversely, you can receive them only from people you’re following.

Send Direct Messages by using the pull-down menu to choose a recipient and then typing in your note.

Sample: DM to WUSTLlibraries: I’d like to schedule a meeting in the Café next Tue at 10am

@username (at reply)

Click on “Reply” under a tweet in your timeline to respond to the author. It will begin a tweet for you with @username at the beginning.

Send public messages to people by beginning with @username.

If the user is following your account, your message will appear directly on his Twitter home page. (If not, your message will appear in his @username mentions folder.)

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Tip: If you’re communicating about something potentially sensitive, switch to DM or email. Remember, @mentions are public, so anyone can see them.

RT @username (retweet) Notes

Retweeting (RT) is reposting people’s tweets and giving them credit.

To retweet, click on “Retweet” under a tweet in your timeline.

Retweeting is common and a form of conversation on Twitter.

Used to spread messages and ideas across Twitter quickly.

Sometimes people retweet manually and it looks like this:

Sample: RT @WUSTLNSS Campus Electric Outage http://nss.wustl.edu/node/314

Searching

Search for people using the Find People link.

Search for topics from your home page.

No advanced search features - all search is done via #tag or keyword. It’s not very sophisticated but it can get the job done.

Google does some twitter searching but it is very new, methods and quality are uncertain.

#tag (hash tag)

Hashtags are the way to group and organize tweets from multiple people.

Searches for a hashtag result in all of the related messages.

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Hashtags are the # symbol followed by a term describing or naming the topic.

If enough people use the same hashtag at once, the term will appear in Twitter’s Trending Topics.

Conferences and events frequently have hashtags associated with them (like #TED).

Sample: Are you reading Zahra's Paradise? You should be. http://www.zahrasparadise.com/ #iranelection

Trending topics

The most-mentioned terms on Twitter at that moment.

Continuously update, reflecting the real-time nature of Twitter and true shifts in people’s attention.

Trending Topics aggregate many tweets at once and often break news ahead of the mainstream media.

Trends often include hashtags.

Can view what is trending worldwide or in various countries or cities.

Sources “The Simple Twitter Book | Brent Ozar - Too Much Information,” http://www.brentozar.com/twitter/book/. “Twitter 101 — Learning the lingo,” http://business.twitter.com/twitter101/learning.

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ResourcesWant more information?

Twitter 101 LibGuide :: http://libguides.wustl.edu/twitter101

Washington University Libraries Twitter Page :: http://twitter.com/WUSTLlibraries

Instructors

Jaleh Fazelian

jfazelia@wustl.eduhttp://twitter.com/jaleh_f

Makiba Foster

mfoster@wustl.eduhttp://twitter.com/makibaj

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