Many people have asked me lately what exactly Twitter is all about. My friends that are on Facebook see my status updates coming via Twitter and have been confused. To put it in as plain of terms as possible, Twitter is a free micro-blogging/social messaging utility for staying connected in real time by asking the crucial question, “What’s happening?” Trust me, that was the simplest definition of the word! The premise behind Twitter is to update people on what you are doing via short messages called, “tweets.” How short exactly? Well, 140 characters or less to be exact. The nice thing is that it forces you into making your point in 140 characters (or less of course).
Twitter is a social media platform that has exploded in the last couple years. It even has a language of its own that took me a while to figure out and eventually master. The way it works is you, the author sends out these tweets which are displayed on your profile page. They go out into the public timeline as well (unless you have chosen to protect your updates and restrict them to only your friends). People can choose to subscribe to your tweets. They are known as your followers. You can also subscribe to their tweets by following them. Your profile page will display your followers as well as the people who you follow. Your page will also be filled with the timeline/tweets of those who you have chosen to follow. Does this seem confusing? Well it gets even more confusing with the introduction of other words such as the “retweet.” A retweet (abbreviated RT in a tweet) is when you repeat another person’s tweet. You will usually retweet when you come across a tweet from an individual whom you find interesting or important enough to share with your followers. A retweet basically says you like what someone has to say and feel it’s worth sharing with your group of followers.
Some of my friends who I convinced to try twitter either said they thought it was boring or were unimpressed by it. I happen to be a self-proclaimed twitter addict. I guess it all depends on how you use Twitter. You pretty much get out of it what you put into it. There are people who use Twitter to market their business, products, or themselves. Others use it as strictly a social tool to stay in contact with friends or make new friends and others will use it to stay on top of the latest trends on just about anything out there. You can post links to things you find interesting and even post pictures for others to see. The Twitter community is a very large and broad one. It contains the average people, like you and I, celebrities, politicians, businesses, etc. I happen to believe that having a broad range of people you follow makes Twitter more interesting. I happen to have a large group of people I follow from all different walks of life. Some are personal friends; others are people across the world in my field (event/meeting planning and consulting), major corporations, local businesses, musicians, people in technology, and many others. This makes for a very diverse and interesting timeline for me.
I encourage anyone who has never tried Twitter to at least give it a try. After all, it does not cost anything. You may be surprised to find out how much you will like it and how addicting it can be, well it is for me anyway! A good place to find is people is a directory I like to use called WeFollow; www.wefollow.com. You can even list yourself in that directory to find other people with similar interests to yours and be found by them. And of course, you can always follow me, www.twitter.com/OC_Monica .
I hope this crash course on Twitter and how it works has answered some of the questions that have come up. Do give it a try! Hope to see you all out in the “Twitterverse.”
