What is Twitter?

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Sometimes we social media marketers get so caught up in how to effectively market with Twitter, we forget that there are still people that don’t understand Twitter.

My friend asked me yesterday, “Carmen, Ms. Social Media Butterfly, what the heck is this Twitter stuff all about?”

I hadn’t had to explain Twitter in quite some time, so it threw me off. I’ve since had time to compose myself, and here is my explanation to her.

  1. Twitter is a form of instant communication, but is restricted to 140 characters. Which I think is good. It teaches you to be concise!
  2. You can “follow” a particular person, a particular brand, or a particular subject. A Twitter “name” is represented by an “@” symbol. For instance, on Twitter, should you want to follow me (please please please!) you would address any posts directly to me with @socialmedbtrfly. Or, if you were a fan of say, Starbucks, you would address any posts to them with @Starbucks, and so on and so forth.
  3. When you follow someone, whatever they post, or “Tweet” (remember, these are in 140 characters) shows up in your Timeline. Think of a timeline as similar to the News Feed on Facebook. 
  4. Over time, you may decide that there are just too many Tweets in your Timeline to keep up with. Consider then using “lists” – this is where you can organize Twitterers into categories. As you get more advanced, you may want to consider using a third-party tool that helps you organize your Tweets as well. I like a tool called Tweet Deck, which you can download for free. 
  5. These Tweets can also be organized by subject using something called a Hashtag, represented by a number sign “#”. Let’s say, for example, that you are a huge American Idol fan. If you wanted to join in the conversation, you would do a Twitter search (search.twitter.com) for “#Idol” and then you could see all of the Tweets that have been posted recently on American Idol. How did I know what hashtag to use? You can also just search for words without the hashtag, and see what people are posting, and what hashtags they are using. Then, you know, when you Tweet, which hashtag to use in your post so other people following that subject will see it. For example “I think that Steven Tyler was awesome on #Idol last night, and JLo was gorgeous!” I think I’ll write a whole post on hash tags soon.
  6. These Tweets all happen in real time. It’s a great way to keep up with news events. You can see what people are talking about by seeing the Trends on Twitter. These trends are posted on WhatTheTrend.com, as well as on Twitter’s own client.

Have I confused more than I’ve helped? Did I leave anything out? Comment below! Also, check out Mashable.com’s explanation as well. http://mashable.com/what-is-twitter/

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