A visual guide to using twitter.

1. Twitter
Claire Wardle 2010

2. You can have 3 types of relationships on twitter
2. People follow you: 3. You follow someone
1. You follow people: Heaton Wines follow me but I and they follow you
I follow Stephen Fry but he don’t follow them (I’m sure back:
doesn’t follow me. they’re lovely, but I don’t drink I follow Sue Lewellyn and she
a lot of wine!) follows me.
Claire Wardle 2010

3. The ‘Home’ page shows your timeline.
When any one of the people you follow
tweets, it appears here.
Claire Wardle 2010

4. The ‘Profile’ page shows all of
the tweets you have written.
Claire Wardle 2010

5. twitter.com/number10gov twitter.com/bbcnews
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.
Claire Wardle 2010

6. This is where
you write your
tweets. As you
write, the
number 140
decreases which
allows you to see
if you have
You click ‘tweet’ when you are
written more
ready for it to go out to all of
than the 140
your followers (and the world!)
character
limit.
Claire Wardle 2010

7. Under your username,
you will see 4 numbers:
2. Following: that is the 3. Followers: that is the
number of people you number of people who are 4. Listed: this is the
1. How many
have decided to follow following you. When you number of twitter lists
tweets you have
on twitter. Their send tweets, the tweets which have been created
sent
updates appear on this appear in the timeline of which include you.
page. your followers
Claire Wardle 2010

8. 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

9. Like an email message to a group list of
Statement
addresses
Like a reply to one person on the list, but
Reply 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
Normal one to one email
Message
Claire Wardle 2010

10. 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

11. 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

12. 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

13. 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.
If you click on Messages you will see any
You can only send direct messages to one
private messages you have sent or received
person at a time.
and can write new ones.
Claire Wardle 2010

14. To send a new Direct
Message click ‘New
Message’, or click on any
previous conversations
Claire Wardle 2010

15. 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

16. 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

17. 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

18. 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

19. You simply cut and paste
your ‘long URL into this box
and click shorten
http://www.bbc.co.uk/journalism/blog/2010/05/four-quick-examples-of-twitter.shtml
Bit.ly then produces a short link which you can
then use in twitter.
Claire Wardle 2010

20. This shortened version of
the URL is a general one
You can see these are
different even though the
‘long address’ is the same
This one is unique to
me as I’ve signed in. It
means I can track who
clicks on the link from
my tweets.
Claire Wardle 2010

21. By signing into bit.ly it gives
you all sorts of information
about who is clicking on
your links
Claire Wardle 2010

22. 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

23. 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.
Jennybee has decided she wants to Popular hashtags emerge from users
categorise her tweets as one about the themselves and they develop organically.
TV programme Luther. They’re not always obvious.
TV Programmes News Events Jokes/Fun
#nickcleggsfault - people coming up
with problems to blame on Nick Clegg
#bbcqt - BBC Question Time #haiti
after the some papers turned on Clegg
during the election.
#COP15 - Copenhagen Climate #lesserbooks - where people suggested
#bgt - Britain’s Got Talent
Summit slightly changed book titles
Claire Wardle 2010

24. 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

25. 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

26. How to create your own list
1. Click on the blue
number next to
‘following’
2. Choose the person you want to add to your
list, and click on the square button next to the 3. Twitter then asks you to give the
‘unfollow’ button. list a name and a description if you
You can either add someone to a list you’ve would like.You can also make your
already created or you can create a new one by list public (so other people can
clicking on ‘Create a list’. follow it) or private.
Claire Wardle 2010

27. 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 When you click on the list, you
they have created or will get to a page like this and
followed.You can click on any one simply click ‘follow this list’
that you want to follow.
Claire Wardle 2010

28. 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

29. 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

30. 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.
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.
If you want to look at any of the profiles, you
click on their username and you will be taken to
their profile page.
* People can disable those notifications Claire Wardle 2010

31. How to unfollow someone: Go to your profile...
Click the blue number
after ‘following’
Click ‘unfollow’
Claire Wardle 2010

32. 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

33. 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

34. 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

35. When you click ‘Profile’ at the top you can add a
picture, your location (this stays the same and isn’t
To change your twitter background, click
connected to your actual location), your website and
‘design’, and then either select a generic
a 160 character biography. If you want to encourage
background or click ‘change background
followers you should have a picture and bio. If you are
image’ and upload a file.
a journalist using twitter for newsgathering you
should be transparent about that fact.
Claire Wardle 2010

36. 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
Twitscoop, a moving
Everytime someone
word cloud of Direct
My overall timeline sends me a message This is one of my lists
popular words and Messages
or mentions me
trends
Claire Wardle 2010

37. 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

38. 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

39. Twitterfall.com allows you to keep on top of fast moving tweets. The tweets fall down the screen.
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 You can also find tweets from You can monitor tweets in
terms running at the same time people located in a particular different languages.
place.
Claire Wardle 2010

40. Trendsmap.com allow you see what words are ‘trending’ all over the world.
Johannesburg
You can zoom in and out, or pinpoint an You can also search by topic or city here to get
area, city, region or the whole world. active moving tweets.
Claire Wardle 2010

41. 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

42. Claire Wardle 2010