Twitter for Beginners
What is Twitter and why would I use it?
Twitter is a Microblogging software application that is accessible online. People post comments about their activities and links to new articles or blog posts that they find interesting and helpful. Helpful in the sense ti adds to their own personal knowledgte base.The concept is based on the concept of social networking. A virtual network of link minded individuals.
Twitter is a free social networking and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read messages known as tweets. Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 characters displayed on the author’s profile page and delivered to the author’s subscribers who are known as followers. Senders can restrict delivery to those in their circle of friends or, by default, allow open access. Ever since late 2009, users can follow lists of authors instead of following individual authors. All users can send and receive tweets via the Twitter website, Short Message Service (SMS) or external applications. While the service itself costs nothing to use, accessing it through SMS may incur phone service provider fees.
Since its creation in 2006 by Jack Dorsey, Twitter has gained notability and popularity worldwide. It is sometimes described as "SMS of the Internet"The use of Twitter’s application programming interface for sending and receiving text messages by other applications often eclipses direct use of Twitter.
Founder Evan Williams described Twitter;
" What we have to do is deliver to people the best and freshest most relevant information possible. We think of Twitter as it’s not a social network, but it’s an information network. It tells people what they care about as it is happening in the world."
The sharing of information to create Personal Learning Networks will become clear as we walk through this tutorial.
The following is a short tutorial on how to use Twitter. It is part of the Elearning Center workshops designed to help beginners use web 2.0 tools. Please watch the calendar for details on free and low cost webinars for newbies.
Where do I find the Twitter application and how do I sign up?
Twitter is freely avaiable by setting up an account at www.twitter.com. Go to the Twitter Login/Sign Up (1) form to open a Twitter account.
Create an account
The first thing you need to do is choose your user name. (1) This user name is used on your profile page. It is your Twitter ID and people use this ID to find you on the Twitter, network. It looks something like this http://twitter.com/username. Once you know what you want as a user name you need to confirm, if it is available, Type the name you want in the name field. (1) You will be notified, if your desired name has been already available or not. You will get a confirmation email asking you to activate your account. Be sure to check your junk mail folder if you don’t get the activation email.
Setting up your Profile
Before you start sending updates you need to set up your profile. Click on settings to go to the profile set up page.
Fill in your profile details
A profile page tells other TWITTER users something about you. The information that you post on your profile page will help them decide, if they want to connect with you. Click the settings button (1)to edit your profile. The One Line Bio (2)should explain something about what you do or your interests. A network is made up of people who share common interests so pleaee share yours. If you are interested in cooking, you could say something like" Cooking makes my day" or" I am a professsional chef working in Italy" or list your qualifications. Be sure to list your location and if you do have a web site enter the url here.
Add an image to your profile
You can use a personal photo, a logo or any image you want ( copyright respected). For more detailed help on using images for your profile, please see the "How to determine the size of an image and how to upload a profile image" tutorial for help in adding an image to your profile.
Parts of a twitter profile
Let’s take a look at a Twitter Profile. A profile will contain an image ( you can leave it blank) (1); your Twitter ID (2); the number of people who you are following (3); those who follow you (4); and the lists that contain your user name (5)The user profile is always located in the upper right end corner of a twitter page.
Composing a Tweet Let’s get started twittering.
To create a message a user types a 140 character message in the "what’s happening" space (1). In this case, I wrote "this is a post on twitter" I clicked "Update" (2)to send my message to my Twitter network.
Reading a Tweet
Tweets – both your own and those of your followers will appear in a timeline with the most recent update located at the top of the list.
Navigating a Twitter page.
This is a Twitter page. It is a snap shot that will help understand the terms and actions you will use while Twittering. A list of "Tweet" (comments ) displays in a timeline for Tweets. The timeline includes the picture of the person making the Tweet and their message/Tweet. These Tweets are made by people in your network – those people who follow you and those people that you follow. When you open your twitter page for the first time this page will be empty but once you start following people this page will fill up. Think of yout Twitter page as a conversation with the people in your Twitter network. I’ll explain the different sections in detail in the following pages and how to build your network.
Here’s what is looks like – Connecting with people on Twitter.
This snap shot is taken of ourtwiiter page and it shows you the Twitter "Peggy George " as part of our timeline on thetwitter page. Peggy George is someone that we follow. Her Twitter ID (1) happens to be her name but it doesn’t have to be. Some people do use an alias but if you do, be sure to identify who you are or people will be suspicious and not let you folllow them. Really – we do read profiles to check people out and you can be blocked from following someone.
Peggy George’s Twitter Page
This is what Peggy George’s Twitter page looks like. I clicked her name on our page and was sent directly to Peggy’s page.
Some things to note:
- we are following Peggy (1)
- Peggy’s profile (2)
- Peggy’s blog address (3) for you. If you click on the link, you will be directed to Peggy”s Blog.
Peggy George’s Blog
It is important to note that when you are buiding your Twitter network it is also important to create some other kind of web space. It may be a regular web site, blog, Face Book page. The more you write about what you do, the easier for people to make a decision whether to follow you or not. The greater your sphere of influence.
Followers. Classroom 20 list
this page illustrates the twitter network for Classroom 20. First the people who follow Classroom 20
People Classroom 20 follows -
Clicking on any of the Twitter IDs (2) will send you directly directed fto their Twitter page
Searching for a Twitter user.
When you sign up for Twitter you timeline page will be filled with just your own tweets until you create your own Twitter network. To find people to follow on Twitter you can use the search window to find contacts to follow. In this case, first, I did a Google search for theTwitter ID for live classroom 20 and found it to be liveclassroom and I entered that search term in the search field and got the following results.
Search results for the Twitter ID liveclass20
The search produced a list of tweets. This list is actually a timeline of tweets which keeps changing as people tweet. The most recent tweet is posted at the top of the list. There are 3 things to note in this results page. The term @liveclass20 the term #liveclass20and the URL(weblink) http://tiny.cc/aDV#Z. Let’s look at each.
1. The term @liveclass20 refers directly to the Liveclass20 Twitter Page. If you click on any reference to @liveclass20 you will be directed to the Live Classroom 20 ‘s Twitter page. @liveclass20 is the Twitter ID of live classroom 20.
2. You can start and/or follow a conversation about a person or a subject by using something called a Hastag, A Hastag looks like this "#somethingorother" . It is the " #" key on your keyboard followed by a search term. If you use a #hashtag in one of your tweets you can create a discussion thread for people to follow. In this case the hashtag "#liveclass20" indicates a twitter conversation about something happening on the Live classroom 20 session. You can see it referenced several different times in the Timeline. Hash tags help organize twitter conversations.
3. A url in a tweet indicates a link to a web page. If you click on a ink, you be directed to a web page like the one that follows.
Web page referenced in a Tweet.
Every time you click on a link in a Tweet you will be directed to the web page that the person that you are following wants you to see.
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