How to ... Tweet!

Twitter is an online social networking and microblogging service, enabling users to send and read text – based posts of up to 140 characters.

So exactly how is this used?

If you’re new to twitter the whole experience can be daunting. Learning how to follow, be a part of trends and joining the social networking revolution takes a little time...

We’ll show you how in the following steps and rules:

1) Set up your profile; it’s easy and a great way of letting others know you are a serious twitter user. Add a picture of yourself and personalise your page, edit your bio, add a link to your blog (or website)

2) Consider your agenda. Why have you joined twitter? Do you want to meet people for business or on a social level? Twitter can help you connect with the specific group you wish to be involved with.

3) Remember don’t tweet useless twitter junk, that you wouldn’t normally say to your friends or family in real life. The cyber world is not interested in your personal problems. Don’t be rude, and you’ll find people will follow you.

4) To start tweeting effectively, you need to learn the basics, be concise you only have 140 characters to communicate one thought. Practice the short art of brevity.

5) When beginning to tweet, you’ll obviously see tweets you like and want to comment on. So to reply directly to that user, click the “reply” arrow located beneath the person’s tweet.

6) To join a WorldWide Conversation you can use the hash (#) key (symbol + a keyword) to create a tag in your tweet which enables users across the globe to see your tweet when using the search function.

7) If you find a tweet you want to share with your friends and followers, you are able to RE-TWEET. You can simply click the re-tweet button beneath the tweet or type “RT” then space then “@” – then copy the body of the person’s tweet, and post it directly after the @ symbol. Re-tweeting has two benefits: shows that you are interested in other people, and will bring attention to both you and the other party.