Everyone is talking about Twitter, and while it is the fastest growing social network right now, it will take a while before the number of users compares to other sites such as Facebook.
In a nutshell, Twitter is a cross between a social network and a micro-blog. Users are able to send out messages in real time of 140 characters or less, read messages sent by others, and search for specific topics.
Some basic terminology to know if you want to use Twitter:
- Followers — You can follow others on Twitter. In fact, you want to follow others and have them follow you. These are the people who are interested in reading your messages. You can search for people you know, people you’d like to know, people with similar interests, or companies.
- Tweet — A tweet is any message sent out on Twitter. Tweets cannot be more than 140 characters long, which forces people to be concise and simple in their statements. It also brings about some unique abbreviations!
- Re-Tweet — A re-tweet is when a user sends out someone else’s message again. This is advantageous when you have an important or interesting message to share. You send it out to your followers and ask them to re-tweet it. They send it out to their followers, with a simple RT in front of your message, along with your username, and your message has now reached all of your followers AND all of their followers.
- Hashtag — While reading tweets, you will notice certain words with a hashtag before them. This helps others searching for specific topics. When you want to make it easier for a group to follow a topic, you can utilize a hashtag. It would look like this: #computertraining
You can follow us on Twitter @ExecTraining.
To learn more about social media, attend our upcoming half-day Social Media class on November 23, 2009! You’ll learn about Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and more!
