Twitter 101 – article 1 of 4

Twitter is a Microblogging Platform

Twitter is a microblogging platform, where users can send messages in 140 character bursts, known as Tweets, to their followers.

When a person signs up to Twitter, they choose a username under which to send their Tweets.  Users can add other people on Twitter to their stream by ‘following’ their Tweets, and other users can follow your tweets in their stream by following you in the same way.

The more people you follow, the more updates from people you will see in your stream. And the more you tweet, the more often people who follow you will see you in theirs.

You can protect your tweets – which means you have to approve someone’s request to follow you – but you do not need to follow someone in order for them to follow you (or vice versa).

Tweets can range from the mundane (‘Off to the movies to watch Avatar’), to the informative (‘An earthquake has struck off the coast of Chile’) to the downright captivating (‘Humbled’ – the one word tweet Barack Obama posted after it was announced he won the election). The number and type of people you follow determines the kind of content in your stream of tweets.

The great thing about Twitter is the access you get to news, information and celebrities in real time. It can also be a really powerful business tool, you just need to understand your target market – but more on that in our next post.

Check out the other related blog articles: what is the point of twitter, twitter for your business and South Africans on twitter.

Cannot wait until next week for the update on the 101 Guide to Twitter  contact us on t 0861.321.777.