Years since its inception, Twitter is still as popular as ever in Nigeria but remains a mystery to many. But—kick and scream all you want—there might come a situation in which you’re forced to hop on board.

But Twitter? You just don’t get it. Don’t worry you’re not alone.

So how do you join this free social media and maximize its potential to the fullest? You need not be afraid-it is actually much simpler than you would think! We’ve put together some Twitter crash courses for you to get started on. This guide can even make you an influencer on the platform.

Let’s Get Started With Our Twitter Crash Course

Are you a newbie to Twitter and want a crash course to know how to get started? Or are you eager to compose better tweets or expand your Twitter following? Continue reading for our answers.

What is Twitter?

Twitter is a free social media that helps users microblog via broadcasting short posts called tweets. Tweets were originally limited to 140 characters long but recently the limit was doubled to it was changed to 280 characters and these can include links to relevant websites and resources. When you follow someone, you can see their tweets on your Twitter timeline. You can choose to follow people and organizations with similar academic and personal interests to you. 

Twitter is available on most devices including, desktops, androids, and phones.

The Twitter default setting is Public. As opposed to Facebook and LinkedIn, where social connections need to be approved, anyone can follow anyone on Twitter. Followers see tweets in real-time. And tweets do not fade away. They are posted on the Twitter website and a search can be made for them if it is missed in real-time.

You can either create your own tweets or retweet information that has been tweeted by others. Through retweeting, information can be quickly and efficiently shared with a large audience.

How It Started

Twitter’s origins lie in a “daylong brainstorming session” held by board members of the podcasting company Odeo before it later changed its directions into being the microblogging service that it is today. 

So how did Twitter get its name? In 2007, Jack Dorsey, who was then an undergraduate student at New York University, came up with the idea of using an SMS service to communicate with a small group, and the project code name was twitter, a name inspired by the photo-sharing site, Flickr.

The name of the social network site was later changed to Twitter which Dorsey explained to be “a short burst of inconsequential information,’ and ‘chirps from birds”.

The name was fitting and so the new platform adopted the name. Soon the “chirps” of countless Twitterers were seen all over the Twitterverse as the microblogging platform caught on with Internet users and it didn’t take long before the new site gained fame and became a highly addictive platform.

How to Sign Up

Pick a username to be used for your Twitter handle. Ensure that it’s related to your brand or person. After that, the next step is to add your bio and what interests you. This makes people know you better. People will decide if they want to follow you based on the information you provide here.

You can also include your location, website link, as well as an avatar image that appears on your profile as well as next to all tweets.

Be stylistic about your page and provide an awesome background image, cover photo, and theme colors.

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How to follow people on Twitter

Once you are done with your sign-up, Twitter would suggest popular users you might be interested in following. You might not be interested in a lot of them. Twitter only gives you a suggestion based on who is popular.

The more you follow people with similar interests, the more accurate suggestions you will receive. Also if you decide or want to follow specific people, you can type their names into the search box. Clicking on their name will take you to their profile. Once you are on that page, click the “Follow” button to the right to begin following them. This means any tweets they post will appear on your homepage.

You can also decide to unfollow people if you feel they are clogging up your stream with irregular or useless posts.

How to post a Tweet

All tweets are a maximum of 280 characters. While that might look too short to say anything substantial, it is not. It could even mean having to tweet multiple times to pass across a complex point (in the Twitter-sphere, we call that a thread), but having your thoughts boiled down to a few lines only makes your statement stronger, easier to read, and more shareable.

If you’re interested in posting something, just click the text box that says “What’s happening?”. You can include pictures, GIFs, or polls by clicking the icons below the text box.

When you’re ready, press “Tweet”.

Adding photos and videos to your tweet can make it more engaging. In fact, you would generally get a double engagement result with this.

Retweets

RT means “retweet.” To engage with someone else’s content, you can “Retweet” it. In this way, you can (for instance, if someone posts a funny video and says “This is the funniest video ever!” and you retweet it, you’re signaling to your audience that you also like the video and want to share it). 

Whenever you retweet someone, you have the option to just repost their tweet by itself or you can add your own commentary.  As an alternative, you can click the speech bubble on the left of the Retweet button if you want to comment on the tweet or the heart on the right of the Retweet button if you want to “like” the tweet.

Connecting and Mentions

Twitter allows you to connect with individuals privately on the platform. A great way to do this is called mentions. When you mention someone in a tweet relevant to their interest, they are likely to follow you.

To do this simply add @ and the person’s username (@username) to your tweet. When you write this first thing in your tweet, it is referred to as a direct tweet. So, only that person and those who follow both of you will see your tweet.

If the other user follows you, you can also communicate privately via Direct Messages. Additionally, Twitter provides you with suggestions on whom to follow and other ways to find friends.

A mention is a Tweet that contains another user’s (@username) anywhere in the body of the Tweet.  This means that replies are also considered as mentions.

Twitter collects these messages, as well as all your replies, in your Notifications tab.

If you include more than one @username in your Tweet, all of those people will be alerted of your mention, and your Tweet will appear in their Twitter notification feed.

Twitter search and discovery

This feature lets you know what’s happening right now, tailored to your needs.

In the Discover tab, you can keep up with tweets, and activities, find new people to follow, friends to connect with and browse through categories like music, sports, entertainment, humor, technology, and more.

Hashtag

The # symbol is used to tag keywords or topics in a tweet to make it easy for others searching for that topic to find your tweet.

People use the hashtag symbol (#) before a relevant keyword or phrase without space in their Tweet to categorize those Tweets and make them more visible in Twitter Search. These hashtags are useful in specific instances, such as conferences, when you want to find out what others are saying about a lecture or keynote speech, or on a particular topic of interest like #endsars #endpolicebrutality

Clicking on a hashtag in any message displays all other related tweets marked with that keyword. You can include hashtags at any point in the Tweet – at the beginning, middle, or end. Hashtagged words that become very popular are often Trending Topics- Twitter

Like

You can click the heart icon if you want to like a tweet.

The heart icon was formerly the favorite button but was changed to stop confusing people as you might like a lot of tweets but everything can’t be your favorite.

Lists

With Twitter, you can list the users you follow into groups or curated lists showing tweets of all the users in the list.

It is possible to create up to 1,000 lists, each containing no more than 5,000 people.  To access your list click on your profile picture in the top left corner of Twitter and select Lists, this will take you directly to your lists.

Feed

This is a stream of tweets from all the accounts you follow on Twitter. These tweets are displayed in real-time.

Notification

Twitter’s Notification timeline provides users with a simple way to see how others are interacting with them. From the Notifications timeline, you can stay in the know about the things you care about. Including which of your Tweets have been liked, Tweets directed to you (replies and mentions), the latest Retweets (of your Tweets), and your new followers.

If you look at the Notifications timeline from the web, you can select the Mentions tab to only see your replies and mentions.

Direct Message (DM)

If you wish to contact someone privately, then a direct message (DM for short) is your answer. You can compose a DM on Twitter via the “Messages” tab, or by simply inserting the letters DM into your Tweet, without @ symbol. For example: “DM fitness for men, Want to meet over coffee sometime to discuss great content for men?”

Unfortunately, unlike public tweets, you can only DM someone if they are already following you.

Trends

A trend on Twitter is usually hashtag-driven.  The topics are shown and ranked based on popularity in real time.

Trends are basically determined by an algorithm that monitors hot topics based on where you are located and whom you follow. It shows activities around the use of hashtags and hot topics that have been popular in recent times.

So, what you see on the trending list is more likely related to the topics that you find interesting and the online community where you belong.

If you want to see trends that are not within your network, you can go to the Twitter home page or the discover feature. You can also search the web to find one.

Trends usually show on the left side of the page.

Verified account

An account with a blue tick verification badge shows that Twitter has been in contact with the person or brand that owns the account and verified that it is approved.

According to the policy, Twitter verifies six different types of accounts; for three of them (companies, brands, and influential individuals like activists). 

Learn the Twitter lingo

If you want to engage with others on Twitter, you need to know some of the sometimes bewildering insider lingo and etiquette. These are some of the most common /useful acronyms you might come across include:

• ICYMI – in case you missed it
• DM – Direct message (Twitter’s private messaging service)
• TBT – Throw Back Thursday (a chance to use old content)
• FF – Follow Friday
• OTD – On This Day (for major events or anniversaries)
• ‘Via’ or H/T (hat tip) – ways to give credit to someone who shared the information first
• RT – Retweet (You can retweet if someone says something that sparks your interest)

And there you have it! A smash course in this uncanny, enigmatic world that is the Twitterverse! Congratulations, you made it through! Happy Tweeting!

Originally posted 2021-08-20 23:14:37.