Twitter 101 - an introduction to Twitter

Twitter 101Keith Bradnam

Slides from a presentation to the Davis Community Network, 22nd September 2011

Author: Keith Bradnam, This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Outline

What is twitter?

Why use twitter?

How to use twitter?

Some background

‘Microblogging’ service

‘Social networking’ tool

Messaging service hosted over the Internet and SMS

Way to broadcast short messages (<140 characters)

Messages can contain links to pictures, web pages etc.

Free!

What twitter is...

The 140 character limit was chosen as the developers of Twitter wanted to be able to use all cell phones to send and retrieve tweets, and the SMS character limit is 160 (per text message).

Simple twitter overview

Davis awarded Platinum bike status again

Forecast to reach 97ºF tomorrow. Urghh.

Hope Tony Romo’s ribs don’t break again

Cute kitten pics! - http://flickr.com/F8Fa8

Different people within the twitter ‘ecosystem’ (dotted line) send out various messages (‘tweets’) at various times of the day.





Cute kitten pics! - http://flickr.com/F8Fa8 Non-twitter

user

Most tweets from twitter users can still be seen by non-twitter users by going to the twitter website. However, they would have to view separate webpages for each person that they are interested in.






Other users who are within the twitter ecosystem (i.e. they have a twitter account) can simply specify the users they are interested in and they will then be able to see all tweets in *one* stream (presented in a chronological order).

http://flickr.com/F8Fa8









Not facebook

Not a forum for verbose discussions

Not the best tool for sharing lots of photos

Not great for commenting on old news

Not available in China

What twitter is not...

Some countries choose to ban services like twitter.

Who uses twitter?

@amnesty

@kdvs903fm

@ucdavis

@yournamehere

@cnn

@bbc

@nytimes

@npr

@kingsthings

@oprah

@conanobrien @comcast

@crepevilledavis

@bp_america

All news organizations and most celebrities can now be found on twitter. Increasingly, many more smaller companies and non-profits now have a presence as well. However, the largest number of twitter accounts are held by ‘regular’ people.

What’s the point?

What’s twitter for?

“Don’t people just talk about what they had for lunch?”

It is true that twitter contains many, many tweets that will not cause you to have a life-changing experience. The signal-to-noise ratio can be very low at times. That is not to say that some tweets are not important or useful...

This is why it can matter

Twitter can be a source of real time news, unfiltered by

any news organization

Increasingly, more and more people carry smart phones (with cameras). This has led to the rise of the ‘citizen journalist’. If you have a phone with you when news is breaking, then you can be the first person in the world to report on the news.

This is why it can matter

Alerting people about major natural disasters, arranging civil protests, or just letting people know of traffic problems that might delay your commute home...twitter can be great source of news, that will typically be faster than any traditional media outlet.

Twitter is still growing

Currently, ~300 million users. ~500,000 new users per day!

230M

Twitter continues to grow. Note that most accounts are held by people who tweet very infrequently (if at all).

Tweets are newsworthy?

Easier for news organizations to gauge public opinion

News organizations used to send out reporters to get the opinion of the ‘man or woman on the street’. Now they can just search twitter to find out the mood of the nation on any issue of the day.

Growth of the twitter ecosystem

The twitter ecosystem

Twitter only manages text-based messages...

...but other companies can mine this data stream

Any website from any reputable company or organization is likely to contain a link to their twitter account.

Any many websites make it very easy to tweet about whatever you’re reading.

If you are signed into twitter, then it’s just two clicks in order to send a tweet

Other sites can be authorized to work with your twitter data

Other sites such as LinkedIn, facebook, and many others, can all be authorized to access your twitter account. A status update on one site can also be sent to your twitter account (and vice versa).

The twitter ecosystem

There are 100’s of websites that support & extend twitter

Many companies have made their name (and their livelihood) by supporting twitter.

twitter keeps expanding

Twitter now aggregates pictures that you tweet about

Sometimes twitter makes moves that steps on the toes on these companies, and conceivably might threaten their business.

How you can (productively) use twitter

Passive

Keep tabs on friends and family

Find out latest news about subject ‘x’

See what your favorite celebrity is up to

Get updates on weather, sports results, earthquakes etc.

See promotions from your favorite companies

It’s perfectly fine to use twitter and never write a tweet...just use it to follow others.

ActiveTweet about your life

Post a link to something interesting

Ask a question to your followers, get feedback on an idea

Interact with your customers/users/students etc.

Promote your blog/company

Make new friends

‘Live-tweet’ an event

However, actively engaging with twitter can be very rewarding.

Real world examples

Headphones

Comcast

Power outages

I once found out about the design of some headphones that I was interested in by contacting someone who just tweeted about them. The information I needed to know was nowhere on the web, and my email to the company responsible went unanswered. Twitter saved the day.

Twitter terminology

tweets

Most tweets are broadcast publicly...anyone can read them

All tweets also track details of time and date of tweet and client used to send tweet

the timeline

tweets from people you follow appear together in the timeline

Sorted by date

Updates in real time (sort of)

The timeline is the main way people engage with twitter. The timeline can be accessed on the twitter website, from a desktop application, or from your phone, iPad etc.

mentions

Mentions are only seen by people who follow both accounts

You can reply to tweets. These are known as mentions and twitter tracks the association between the tweets that form a ‘conversation’. Mentions are just tweets that start with the name of the twitter account that you are replying to. This name uses up some of your 140 characters though.

direct messages (DMs)

Direct messages are only seen by recipient.

This is like twitter’s in-house email system

retweets - 1

Retweeting is the action of flagging a tweet to your followers

Retweeting allows people who follow you to become aware of tweets you find interesting, funny etc. This can be a good thing, but not if it is overused. Web and desktop clients allow you to easily retweet by clicking on one link.

retweets - 2

This is twitter’s newer style of retweeting tweets

You receive email notifications if one of your tweets is retweeted.

retweets - 3

Old style retweeting, just add ‘RT @username’ before tweet

You can also retweet by essentially copying and pasting a tweet but then adding ‘RT’ before it. The ‘RT’ + username eats into your 140 characters though, and you may have to edit the message to make it fit. The need to edit messages is what led to twitter introducing the newer style of retweeting.

retweets - 4

Having your tweets retweeted by others is a good thing...

...but it is not the only thing

Only 6% of tweets are retweeted

92% of retweets occurs in first hour

Twitter accounts

About accounts

Accounts can be public or private

You can follow other twitter accounts

Other accounts can follow you

You can search accounts

You don’t need an account to see people’s tweets

@kbradnam

Followers Following

Followers vs following

@karrwinn

@UCD123@JanedeLatigue

@nerdytwin@jwalls

@MitoThomas@JanedeLatigue

@trimike

Details of followers/following is public

You don’t have to follow someone just because they follow you!

Which type of account?

Public Private

Anyone can follow you You approve who follows you

All tweets are public Tweets are only visible to people you approve

You can still block users from following you

Far less common than public accounts

Private accounts are quite rare.

Searching tweets

Twitter can let you searchtweets from all accounts

The ability to quickly search millions and millions of tweets is one of the most powerful features of twitter. It lets you find tweets on any subject you might be interested in.

Twitter tools

Some features of twitter

Favorites

Hashtags

Trends

Twitter lists

Twitter keeps adding new features (though maybe just 1–2 major features a year)

The main page of the twitter website is separated into various panels. This is what a user might see when they are logged into an account. There are a lot of links on this page.

Favorites

Just a way of ‘bookmarking’ a tweet

Useful when tweets have interesting links to read later

Favorites are public

Common to ‘favorite’ a tweet which you see on your phone, especially if it contains a link to something, and then read later on when you get back to your computer (favorites are synced between your devices).

How to favorite a tweet

Note that favorites are publicly available for anyone to see. You also get an email if someone ‘favorites’ one of your tweets.

hashtags

A useful way of flagging keywords in a tweet

Just put a hash character before a word (no spaces)

#ucdavis

#idol

#genbio2010

It is easy to find other tweets that use the same hashtag

Hashtags turn words into clickable links that link to all other tweets that share the same hashtag. Used a lot for sports games (and teams), TV shows, scientific conferences, and other ‘events’. But can be used for anything.

Hashtags are clickable

trends

twitter keeps track of words, phrases, and hashtags that are popular

Keeps a list of ‘trending topics’ on home page

You can see trends for the world, different countries, or some major cities.

twitter lists

An easy way of grouping together different users

You don’t have to follow someone to put them in a list

Can follow other people’s lists

Lists can be made private

Lists can be public or private (one list in this image is private, denoted by the padlock icon).

You can add people to lists who you don’t follow as part of your main timeline. You can also follow lists by other people.

Some do’s and don’ts

Do

Engage with people

Try following people that you don’t know

Be wary of twitter spam

Add a picture and write something for your twitter ‘bio’

It makes a huge difference to how you are perceived by others. People are much more likely to follow you if you add information to your twitter bio.

Don’t

Send too many tweets in a row about one topic

Use twitter for conversations with your partner/family

Worry about your follower count

Expect to read all the tweets from all the people you follow

Follow everyone who follows you

Your twitter stream can easily become overwhelming as you follow more and more people. Don’t expect to always read everything. Treat it like a stream and just dip your foot in every now and again. If there are people who you feel you *must* follow, add them to a list to make it easier to follow their tweets.

Twitter is fairly good at getting rid of dubious accounts. When someone follows you, twitter sends you an email and if they have never tweeted, and follow thousands of other people, then maybe consider reporting them to twitter.

Twitter clients

Many ways of using twitter

Originally, you could only send tweets on the twitter web site or by phone (SMS message)

Now there almost a 1,000 different ways of tweeting...from any platform

Twitter have started to create their own ‘official’ twitter applications for each major platform

Take twitter anywherePlatform Number of clients

Windows >160

Mac >130

Linux >50

iPhone/iPod >270

Android >60

Blackberry >40

Why use a client?

Go mobile!

Software to suit all styles

Added functionality compared to web client

Better support for adding photos, videos, web links etc

Caution: not all clients support all twitter features

Personally, I find most clients end up offering a simpler and cleaner experience than the twitter website.

Final thoughts

twitter keep changing

The website keeps changing

The set of available features keeps changing

The ‘rules’ keep changing

But nowhere near as often as a site like facebook.

twitter is a business

It is free – and will almost certainly remain free – but...

...it has to make money somehow

Advertising

Promoted tweets

Sponsored trends

Will adverts start appearing in between ‘regular’ tweets?

Adverts that appear in your main timeline seem on the cards. One good thing about these adverts is that they still follow the twitter rules. No more than 140 characters!

Should you use twitter?

Yes

No

Maybe

Twitter is not for everyone, but I personally find it rewarding and useful. I’ve met some great people through twitter, and it’s now the first place where I hear about news happening (in my town or across the world). There are people and companies out there who can educate, inform, and entertain you...all in 140 characters or less!

The End

What else?

Saved searches

Multiple accounts

Twitter locations

The fail whale

There are many other features, aspects of twitter that I haven’t covered here.

Useful twitter resources@kbradnam’s Davis twitter lists

Other twitter users!

http://friendorfollow.com

http://tweetstats.com

http://twittergrader.com

http://bit.ly

http://oneforty.com







http://bit.ly

http://bit.ly

http://oneforty.com

http://oneforty.com

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Twitter 101 - an introduction to Twitter