A one page guide explaining what Twitter is to people who are completely new to it.

1. What is Twitter?
Twitter is a website where you share short Don’t forget that everyone else can see your
(up to 140 characters) messages with the replies though. To send a private note, it’s
rest of the world. Each 140 character called a direct message. In the black bar at the
message is called a ‘tweet’. top of the screen, click ‘Messages’ to see
those you have received and send new ones.
Hashtags
A hashtag is simply a keyword that
conversations can gather around. Just stick
the # symbol in front of your keyword (again,
You sign up for an account at twitter.com and no space) and put it in a tweet. It becomes a
choose a username and password. That clickable link and you can click it to find what
username becomes your identity on Twitter other people have been saying with that
and is the means by which others users can hashtag.
contact you.
Apps
You can share anything you like in your 140
character messages. Details of what you are If you become a Twitter power user, you might
up to, short hints and tips, asking a question, find the Twitter website a bit limiting. There are
useful links you have come across - anything other places to use Twitter, some are websites
you like! such as Hootsuite and others desktop software
like TweetDeck. Have a play and see which
To make it easier to manage all the content on you like best.
Twitter, you can follow people who seem
particularly interesting. To find more interesting Twitter works really well on a mobile phone.
people, see who the people you follow Most of the popular brands of smartphone
themselves follow by clicking the ‘Following’ have an app you can download, or just visit
link on their profile. m.twitter.com in your phone’s browser. Then
you can tweet on the move!
Another way of finding good people is to
search for them on Twitter. Put a keyword into
the search box about something you’re
interested in, and see who else is tweeting on
the topic.
@replies
You can point messages at specific people -
just find out their user name and stick an @
sign in front of it - without a space. This way
they will get notified of your message. An easy
way of doing this is to click the arrow that
appears on other people’s tweets - this creates
the whole @ thing for you and is called
‘replying’. Simple!
This quick guide was put together by Kind of Digital.
We provide strategic advice, training and technical development to help organisations open up and
make the most of the web - including social media tools like Twitter!
Find out more at kindofdigital.com or follow us on Twitter - @kindofdigital
Published under creative commons - feel free to redistribute and edit, but not for commercial gain.