Twitter Basics

So yesterday I talked about the actual sign up process for twitter. Here's some more of the basics.

How to use twitter
On the right hand side you'll see your username and under that is the number of times you've tweeted. A tweet is anything you've posted. To post a tweet type something in the text box and then click "Tweet". Tweets need to be 140 characters or less.
If you clicked "Follow" to anyone yesterday you'll see everything they've tweeted recently in your home page. If you're not following anyone yet feel free to follow me. Go to my twitter page and click "follow".
How to respond to someone
Hover over their tweet and you'll see "reply" click that. In your tweet text box you'll see @username. The @ is how you respond to people. You don't have to click reply, you at hand type the at symbol and the username instead. When you type the at symbol in the beginning of a tweet only the person you are talking to and people who are following them (or just happen to be looking at your tweets) can see it. If you want everyone to see a tweet which is talking about someone you can write "I love @username", then everyone who is following you can see that tweet. To see if someone has mentioned you click @"yourusername" on the right side of your page.
What is Retweet?
Retweet is when you share a tweet that someone else has written with your followers. You can hover over their tweet and click "retweet", or you can type the following in your text box "RT @username" and then copy and paste whatever they said. Remember to put the RT in front, and not the back because you need something in front of the username so everyone who is following you can see it. Some people put their comments on a RT in front, some people put it after the quote, right after // or some other symbol. To see if someone has retweeted something you wrote click "Retweets" on the right hand side and then "Your tweets retweeted"
Hashtag
You'll start seeing a bunch of tweets that look like this: #knit. This is kind of like putting keywords onto a tweet, it makes it easier for people to find tweets on a certain topic when searching.
To save someone else's tweets
Hover over their tweet and click on the little star above "retweet". You can find it again by clicking favorites
Lists
You can put anyone on a list, even if you aren't following them. Lists can be public, meaning anyone can follow them, or private meaning only you know they are on your list. Lists contain a just a collection of tweets made by the people on the list.


Well, I had no idea I had to say that much about the mechanics of twitter. Tomorrow I'll talk about how to find people, and some newbie strategies for following and being followed.