If I didn’t know better, I’d swear Tweety Bird (ya know, the little yellow cartoon bird)
created the Twitter site, but it turns out it was Jack Dorsey. However, the Twitter language sounds like something directly out of Tweety Bird’s wittle beak.
An expert Twitterer (Or Tweeter as some people say) would have entitled this post, “The Twystery,” because evidently, a fun little pastime Twitter users have is creating Twitter words from the regular English language. This is sometimes referred to as “Twitterspeak.” (For more information see either the “Twictionary” or the “Twittonary“)
I read about Twitter several months ago in a business magazine before it became real big. I didn’t ‘get it’ then and I barely ‘get it now.’ I don’t have time to sit down and read all of the various guides available online in one sitting, but I read a little bit every day and I’m learning ever-so-slowly about Twitter.
Once I posted a question on my Facebook account, “What is the purpose of Twitter?” I got several responses to the effect of “beats me!” Of all of the responses I received, only one said she uses it and it’s been good for business. That wasn’t much of an explanation, but it did pique my curiosity.
It really bugs me when I don’t grasp a subject, so Twitter has become a challenge for me. As I learn about Twitter, I will share it here on this web site just in case there are other unenlightened perspective Twitterer’s out there.
This is what I have so far…
HOW TO SET UP AN ACCOUNT ON TWITTER.COM
- Go to http://twitter.com
- Click on the ‘Sign Up Now’ button.
- Fill in your real name, user name, and password and email, the recaptcha code, then hit the “create my account” button.
- You have now set up your twitter account. You twitter address (or URL) is http://twitter.com/USERNAME
- Once you hit “create my account” you are brought to a page that says “See if your friends are on Twitter. There are three separate buttons on the left hand side you can click if you want to find out if your friends are on twitter. This allows Twitter to check Gmail, Yahoo, or AOL, if you have accounts with any of those services. If you prefer not to do this, there is a link at the bottom of the page that says “Skip this step.”
- The next page says “Look who else is here. Start following them.” Here there is a list of some more well-known Twitter users whom you can choose to follow if you wish. Or you can click on “skip this step.”
- The next page says ‘What to do now.’ There are three options listed. The first one is to write whatever is on your mind, in response to “What’s happening?” You have 140 character spaces to type whatever is on your mind.
This is the beginning of your Twittering. That’s probably enough information to get started with. If you are comfortable “clicking around” on a site, click on some of the links to see where they bring you. If you aren’t comfortable clicking on things without know for sure what you are clicking on, then I will continue to post “what to do next posts here on this site.
My final words are that the best way to get familiar with the options on your Twitter page is to just start clicking on links. Once you’ve become familiar with what each link does, you can check out any online Twitter guide if you are so-inclined. Or just subscribe to the Woman’s Web site to get emails delivered to you with little chunks of what to do next with your Twitter Account.
Have fun discovering Twitter!