Claire Wardle 2010

Twitter

Claire Wardle 2010

You can have 3 types of relationships on twitter

1. You follow people:I follow Stephen Fry but he

doesn’t follow me.

2. People follow you:Heaton Wines follow me but I

don’t follow them (I’m sure they’re lovely, but I don’t drink

a lot of wine!)

3. You follow someone and they follow you

back:I follow Sue Lewellyn and she

follows me.

Claire Wardle 2010

The ‘Home’ page shows your timeline. When any one of the people you follow

tweets, it appears here.

Claire Wardle 2010

The ‘Profile’ page shows all of the tweets you have written.

Claire Wardle 2010

You can look at anyone’s profile on twitter by going to twitter.com/[username]

You can then see all of the tweets they have ever sent.

twitter.com/number10gov twitter.com/bbcnews

Claire Wardle 2010

This is where you write your tweets. As you

write, the number 140

decreases which allows you to see

if you have written more than the 140

characterlimit.

You click ‘tweet’ when you are ready for it to go out to all of

your followers (and the world!)

Claire Wardle 2010

Under your username, you will see 4 numbers:

2. Following: that is the number of people you have decided to follow

on twitter. Their updates appear on this

page.

3. Followers: that is the number of people who are following you. When you send tweets, the tweets appear in the timeline of

your followers

4. Listed: this is the number of twitter lists

which have been created which include you.

1. How many tweets you have

sent

Claire Wardle 2010

There are 5 main types of tweets

Statement tweet: this goes to all of my followers

Reply: this tweet would appear in the timeline of my followers who also follow @suellewellyn.

Mention: this tweet goes to all of your followers but it will be picked up by @suellewellyn as I’ve

mentioned her at the end.

Re-Tweet or RT:I received this tweet in my timeline and decided to forward it to my followers

Direct Message (DM): This will only be seen by Sue Llewellyn

Claire Wardle 2010

Statement Like an email message to a group list of addresses

ReplyLike a reply to one person on the list, but everyone else who knows both people is

copied in on the email

Mention Like an email to an entire list where one or two people are CC’d in.

Retweet An email is forwarded to the list

Direct Message

Normal one to one email

Claire Wardle 2010

Whenever you mention someone on twitter you should use their username

This is because when you log onto twitter, there is a separate section where you can see every

time someone has mentioned you

This means you see all of these tweets even if you don’t follow the person who mentioned

you, and if you don’t check twitter very often.

Claire Wardle 2010

Your timeline shows any tweets sent by people you

follow

When you click @mentions, you will see anyone that has referenced you or directed a

tweet at you

Claire Wardle 2010

To send a public tweet to another user, you need to begin your tweet by typing the @ symbol directly in front of their username before typing your message.

If you see a tweet and want to reply straight away, if you hover over the tweet, you will see

the word ‘Reply’. Click that and twitter will automatically start your message for you.

You can see that Twitter now recognises it is a reply and

brings up a new box for you type your tweet in.

Claire Wardle 2010

If you click on Messages you will see any private messages you have sent or received

and can write new ones.

You can only send direct messages to one person at a time.

You can also send private messages on Twitter. They are called Direct Messages (DMs). BUT you must be following them and they must be following you back.

Claire Wardle 2010

To send a new Direct Message click ‘New

Message’, or click on any previous conversations

Claire Wardle 2010

Re-Tweets : ‘forwarding’ a tweet to your followers

The original way of sending a retweet was to cut and paste the tweet and to type RT and the name of the original tweeter at the beginning of the tweet.

These tweets still exist and are very popular with users who like to add their

own comments, such as here:‘hyperbole ensues...’

Claire Wardle 2010

This is a ‘new’ kind of re-tweet. At the top, you can see it’s a re-tweet and you can see, which one of the people you

follow has re-tweeted it.

If I wanted to retweet a tweet to my followers, I would hover over the tweet and click the ‘retweet’ button. Twitter

then asks you to confirm.

Claire Wardle 2010

By clicking on ‘retweets’ you can see 1) what is being retweeted by the people you follow,

2) which tweets you have retweeted 3) who has retweeted your tweets!

Claire Wardle 2010

There are many different URL shorteners. These take full-length website addresses and convert them into shorter versions. These are 3 of the most common and to use them go to any of these

websites.

http://bit.ly

http://tinyurl.com

http://is.gd

Claire Wardle 2010

http://www.bbc.co.uk/journalism/blog/2010/05/four-quick-examples-of-twitter.shtml

You simply cut and paste your ‘long URL into this box

and click shorten

Bit.ly then produces a short link which you can then use in twitter.

Claire Wardle 2010

This shortened version of the URL is a general one

This one is unique to me as I’ve signed in. It means I can track who clicks on the link from

my tweets.

You can see these are different even though the ‘long address’ is the same

Claire Wardle 2010

By signing into bit.ly it gives you all sorts of information

about who is clicking on your links

Claire Wardle 2010

Hashtags are ways of categorising your tweets. It’s your way of saying this tweet is mainly about a

particularly subject.

By typing the hash symbol before a word, it turns it into a hyperlink (it turns blue) and by clicking on the blue hashtag you can see all other tweets with the same hastag, even if you’re not following those

people.

The person writing the tweet adds the hashtag symbol and it can go anywhere in the tweet.

You don’t have to add a hashtag to your tweets. It’s usual to add a hashtag if you’re writing about a subject which has a community around it, for example a popular TV programme, a big news event

or a conference.

Claire Wardle 2010

If you were looking for people talking about the

new iplayer launch and you did a search for the word iplayer, you would get both

of these tweets in your results but only the 1st is

relevant.

TV Programmes News Events Jokes/Fun

#bbcqt - BBC Question Time #haiti

#nickcleggsfault - people coming up with problems to blame on Nick Clegg after the some papers turned on Clegg

during the election.

#bgt - Britain’s Got Talent #COP15 - Copenhagen Climate Summit

#lesserbooks - where people suggested slightly changed book titles

Jennybee has decided she wants to categorise her tweets as one about the

TV programme Luther.

Popular hashtags emerge from users themselves and they develop organically.

They’re not always obvious.

Claire Wardle 2010

Lists are another feature of twitter which allows you to group people by interest/topic.

Lists don’t interrupt the main timeline on your ‘Home’ page. You find them by clicking on ‘lists.

You can create your own lists. I have created two here. The first is a list of 100 UK

journalists who use twitter well. The second is a list of 200 or so people I follow who tend to

tweet about journalism.

The bottom 9 are lists that were created by other people but I decided to follow those lists as well. One

is a list of Social Media Editors around the world, one is a list of news feeds, one is a list of people associated

with BBC Radio 4, and one is a list of all UK MPs.

Claire Wardle 2010

One of the lists I follow was created by the twitter user ‘ckanal’. It is a list of 100 news twitter feeds, so every time one of

the 100 news organisations tweets, it comes up on this list.

One of the benefits of lists is you don’t have to be following all of these feeds and you can ‘dip’ into your lists and just see

tweets on one particular subject.

Claire Wardle 2010

1. Click on the blue number next to

‘following’

3. Twitter then asks you to give the list a name and a description if you would like. You can also make your

list public (so other people can follow it) or private.

How to create your own list

2. Choose the person you want to add to your list, and click on the square button next to the

‘unfollow’ button. You can either add someone to a list you’ve

already created or you can create a new one by clicking on ‘Create a list’.

Claire Wardle 2010

How you can follow a list set up by someone else

On other people’s profiles, click on ‘lists’ and you will see the lists

they have created or followed.You can click on any one

that you want to follow.

When you click on the list, you will get to a page like this and simply click ‘follow this list’

Claire Wardle 2010

Once you have clicked follow, if you go back to your ‘Home’ and click

on ‘lists’ you will see that list appear at the top under ‘lists you follow’.

Claire Wardle 2010

How you can search for different lists, by looking at a directory of lists, such as listatlas.com

Simply search by location or topic and very likely that

someone will have created a list of tweeting about it.

Click on the twitter list link, view it within twitter

and if you like it, click ‘follow this list’ as explained above.

Claire Wardle 2010

There are many ways of finding good people to follow such as sites like twellow.com but my favourite way is to find someone with similar interests to you and click on the blue word ‘following’

You can scroll through the people that person is following and if you want to follow any of them,

you can click the first box and you will start following them.

If you want to look at any of the profiles, you click on their username and you will be taken to

their profile page.

When you start following someone, they will receive an email telling them they have a new follower. * They may then click on your profile

and make a decision about whether they want to follow you back.

* People can disable those notifications

Claire Wardle 2010

How to unfollow someone: Go to your profile...

Click the blue number after ‘following’

Click ‘unfollow’

Claire Wardle 2010

Sometimes someone will start following you who you’re not happy about. (Maybe they’re not wearing many clothes in their profile picture!). You can block them.

On their profile, click on the cog button and click

‘block’

Use the block function sparingly. Most people only block spammers and porn accounts (these are becoming much less frequent on twitter). To simply block someone you’re not interested in, is

frowned upon. If they want to follow you, it’s their choice!

Claire Wardle 2010

On the bottom right of the ‘Home page’ you will see the trending topics. Trending

topics are the words which are being repeated most frequently in tweets.

I currently have my tweets set for London, so Twitter is looking for the words being

used most frequently by people tweeting in London. If you want to see what is trending

worldwide or in certain countries click ‘Change’ and you will see these options.

Claire Wardle 2010

If you’re going to start using Twitter, you need to make sure you’re settings are how you would like them. Go to the drop

down menu in the top right hand corner next to you username.

You can change your username at any time and you won’t lose your followers.

This will be the email address where you receive notifications when you get a new

Direct Message or new follower. To switch off these notifications, click ‘Notices’ at the top.

Tick ‘tweet location’ if you want people to know where you are when you send tweets

from any computer. (If you’re tweeting from a mobile phone you have to choose to geo-

locate each individual tweet).

If you tick ‘protect my tweets’ that means only people who follow you will see your tweets. It also means you will receive an

email when new people try to follow you and you will need to authorise them as one of

your followers.

Claire Wardle 2010

When you click ‘Profile’ at the top you can add a picture, your location (this stays the same and isn’t

connected to your actual location), your website and a 160 character biography. If you want to encourage

followers you should have a picture and bio. If you are a journalist using twitter for newsgathering you

should be transparent about that fact.

To change your twitter background, click ‘design’, and then either select a generic background or click ‘change background

image’ and upload a file.

Claire Wardle 2010

There are many different twitter applications which can help you to manage twitter. I like tweetdeck personally but there are other very good applications, such as hootsuite.com

My overall timelineEverytime someone sends me a message

or mentions me

Twitscoop, a moving word cloud of

popular words and trends

This is one of my listsDirect

Messages

Claire Wardle 2010

You can also add columns for your facebook updates, and any forward searches you might want to do, e.g. ongoing stories, place names, people.

You can also schedule tweets, if you want to reach followers in different time zones.

Claire Wardle 2010

Advanced Twitter Search. Unfortunately you can’t link to this from twitter.com. You need to go to http://search.twitter.com and then click on advanced search.

You can search by any language or a specific language from the drop down

list

You can search by location

You can search by date but remember you can only search back over the last

4-6 days

Claire Wardle 2010

Twitterfall.com allows you to keep on top of fast moving tweets. The tweets fall down the screen.

You can also find tweets from people located in a particular

place.

You can click on

one of the trends..

... or you can follow any twitter

lists

... or you can add specific

searches.

You can have multiple search terms running at the same time

You can monitor tweets in different languages.

Claire Wardle 2010

Trendsmap.com allow you see what words are ‘trending’ all over the world.

You can zoom in and out, or pinpoint an area, city, region or the whole world.

You can also search by topic or city here to get active moving tweets.

Johannesburg

Claire Wardle 2010

You can see a list of the main trends

and under each you can see

moving updated tweets

You can see what articles, pictures and video are

being shared in Johannesburg

There is also a moving wall of tweets from Johannesburg

Claire Wardle 2010