Twitter

Setting up an Account on a Desktop

Step 1: Go to twitter.com

Step 2: The "Full name" that you provide will be your display name, but unlike Facebook, you can change your display name to whatever you want as many times as you want.

Step 3: Enter in your phone number. This is a form of authentication that will help in case you ever lose access to your account. You'll want to use a phone you actually have access to because the next step will ask you to verify a number sent via text.

Step 4: Enter your birthday

Step 5: Choose your interests. This will help with the next step, which is where Twitter will give you suggestions of people you can follow. You can also skip both of these by saying "skip for now" in the top right hand corner.

Step 6: Pick an avatar. The default picture is a silhouette, but you can make your avatar whatever you want (your face, a dog on a skateboard, the possibilities are endless). Just click the silhouette and head to "Profile" and then click "Edit Profile" on the right underneath the blue bar. You can update your header photo from this place, to

Step 7: Write your bio. You may wish to list where you work, live, or a line from a favorite poem in your bio. This is the short blurb that lets potential followers know who you are and what you're likely to tweet. There is also a handy spot to list your website, if you have on

Step 8: Follow some people.

Step 9: Get tweeting.

Step 10: Check your mentions regularly.

Tweets usually show up in the order they happen. At the top of a Twitter feed, you'll see tweets that are only a second old. New tweets appear at the top, pushing the older ones down. If you haven't signed on in awhile you might get a box of recommended tweets you may have missed, but outside of that the equation is simple: The further down you scroll, the older the tweets.

Setting up an Account on Mobile

Step 1: Fill out your name and phone number/email address. Make sure to use your real one as the next step will ask you to verify.

Step 2: Enter in the verification number that you received at whatever contact information you put in in Step 1. Choose a password.

Step 3: Choose whether you'd like to sync your contacts. This may help you find Twitter followers you know, but if you don't want to, just hit "not now."

Step 4: Search for interests. This will help Twitter recommend good profiles for you to follow.

Step 5: Twitter will provide you with some accounts you can follow based on your interests. Pick out a few you like. If you see them to start you feed off on the right foot.

Step 6: You're in! Simply click on the blue button on the top right to tweet, the grey silhouette on the top left to change your profile picture and settings, and get tweeting!

Twitter isn't about friending—it's about following. You can follow people you know personally, or artists or projects you're a fan of

All tweets are a maximum of 280 characters.

If you have more than 280 characters to say about a subject they are easy to make. Just type your first tweet using the "Tweet" button, and hit the + button on the bottom right. This will string together a series of tweets where you can make a larger point.

If you want to add a photo, a video, a poll, or a gif, you can do so in the lower bar of the "Compose new Tweet" box. Adding a photo does not use up any of your 280 characters, and you can add up to four photos or a video less than 2:20 in length and 500mb in size.

Know the Twitter Lingo

The more you browse Twitter and find people whose tweets you think are smart or funny, the more you'll see some shorthand lingo flying around. Here's what's what.

HT means "hat tip," and it's what you use to credit an account who first clued you into the information you're sharing in your tweet. It's not necessary, but it's a nice thing to do.

An @, or a mention, is when you include somebody's @twittername in the tweet. The person will be alerted that you mentioned them. Use it to send a public "hey, over here," or to add somebody on a conversation that's currently happening.

RT means "retweet." When you retweet someone, you can either just repost their tweet by itself, or you can add your own commentary. If you do that, when you post your tweet, the tweet you're commenting on will appear just below your comment.

Twitter allows you to Direct Message with people who have that feature turned on. It's often called at DM, and it allows you to further conversations in private and chat with groups of people. While all regular tweets are public, including @-mentions, a DM is totally private. Only the people included in the DM can see it.

Setup Lists and Follow Hashtags

A lot of people complain that Twitter is hard to follow. If people tweet something and you're not online, you might not see it until later. But the idea of Twitter isn't to catch every single thing someone tweets, it's to be on the internet at the same time as other people. It's like a giant hangout—an open and rich chat room that's happening in public.

Twitter will occasionally filter the timeline, showing tweets of your favorite people first (Twitter sees who you talk to the most, so it knows who you'd like to see tweets from) before showing real-time tweets again in reverse chronological order. It's a nice feature that helps you get caught up on everything that's happened while you've been away.

Still, if you don't want to miss a beat, here are some tips.

Go directly to the page of the person you want to follow closely and see what they've tweeted.
Search for the hashtag of the event you wish to follow, then tap on the "Live" tab to see the most recent tweets in the larger conversation.
Turn on your notifications. You can set your mobile app to send you push notifications based on popular Tweets from your activity and when news breaks. This is really helpful if you want to keep track of your favorite folks and news outlets, but can't be online all day to watch.
Use Tweetdeck, a more customizable Twitter app. You can make private lists with only a few people on it that you can check to make sure you catch everyone's tweets in that list. You can also set up customized lists within Twitter itself to organize the people you follow and generally keep your sanity.

Return to Social Media

Google Sites

Report abuse