Momiji Social Media Workshop
Twitter Tutorial, Week 2
Getting Started
As with most social media the only thing you need to set up
an account is a valid email address and you must be 14 or older.
Twitter is free, like most (not all) social media.
To sign up, go to google (or your favourite search engine)
and enter “twitter” in the search bar.
On the Twitter home page, find the sign up window.
Choose a username, but be aware that regardless of your
online moniker, others tweeters can find you by simply searching your first and
last name. This may not appeal to you,
but less anonymity leads to fewer ‘trolls’.
Add an avatar. You have
the option of downloading a photo of yourself or of something that represents you
or your interests from your hard drive (‘my pictures’ for windows users). You may have to reduce the size of the
image. This can be done with Microsoft
paint and most photo editing type software.
If you skip this process, Twitter will give you an egg as an avatar.
Fill in required fields, including finding 15 people or
organizations to follow. I found this part
difficult as I have only a dozen or so family members and personal friends on
Twitter, and you can’t complete the sign
up process without doing so. However,
you can always ‘unfollow’ choices that don’t work out later. Twitter will make suggestions, some of which
might interest you. You also have the
option of allowing Twitter to search your email contacts for people who have a
Twitter account that you might like to follow.
Or, you can use the search bar to find specific people or
organizations.
Next, Twitter will send you a confirming email. Go to your inbox and click on the link to
activate your account. Done!
Setting up your account
Before you start tweeting, click on the gear symbol on the
toolbar at the top of the Twitter window.
Go through every setting, checking to make sure the defaults suit
you. You may wish to use the highest
privacy/security settings at least initially. For example, you can decide who can see your
tweets and retweets. A tweet is a
comment, link, picture, or video that you post on your page or some else’s page
or tweet. A retweet is similar to a
Facebook ‘share’. You also can decide
what you want to be notified about via your ‘notifications’ page (accessed by
the ‘bell’ icon on your Twitter taskbar), the email associated with your
account or your smartphone. I recommend
selecting for showing your who is re-tweeting your tweets, as that member may
not be among your followers. Your location is something you may want to keep
private.
Twitter will prompt you to change the look of your home page
and ‘me’ page. This is optional. You may change the colour scheme or add photos. If you wish to personalize your account,
follow the prompts.
Send your first tweet.
Write it yourself or use the pre-prepared tweet.
Tweeting, Following and #Hashtags
Your Second Tweet: On
the far right side of the taskbar along the top of the Twitter window, click on
the button that has a quill pen. A
composing window will open up.
As you type your message, a word count indicator shows you
how many characters remain or, if negative, how many characters over the 140 character (including spaces) limit
you are. Your tweet may include a
comment, a url, photo or video and/or a hashtag.
Check your spelling.
…Remember what you wrote could be transmitted across the
world in seconds. “You are what you
tweet”.
Photos: To include a
photo, click on the camera icon at the bottom left of the composing
window. A ‘browse’ window will
appear. In windows go to wherever you
saved the image you’d like to share, which is usually ‘pictures’ or ‘downloads’. Click on the image or type in the file name
and select open to upload. Mobile phone photos may also be shared via the
Twitter app. See link below.
Urls: To include a
url with your tweet, simply copy it from the browser bar of the originating
website and paste it into the composing window.
Urls are automatically (you can’t opt out of this feature) shortened by
Twitter’s t.co link shortener. This is
for security reasons and because of the 140 character limit. T.co shortens
every link to 20 characters (regardless if the original link is shorter). At the same time t.co checks the link for
common malware, ‘bad’ links, etc. So, if
you try to post a bad link, a warning box will pop up on your screen. You may use a non-twitter link shortener such
as bit., especially if you’re posting the link on various social media
accounts, but on Twitter, the site’s own link shortener will still alter it to
20 characters. The bottom line is that t.co makes surfing Twitter very safe.
Twitter has other limits:
You may make up to 1000 tweets per day.
(This is to prevent spammers and bots.)
Your timeline, however, will only display the 100 most recent ones. This
includes your retweets.
On the taskbar (far left):
Clicking the house icon takes you to your home page and updates your
news feed, which includes the most recent tweets from friends and organizations
you follow. You will also see tweets in
which you or those you follow are tagged. Twitter names have two parts. The
first part is your name or a Twitter name you have selected. The second part begins
with the @ symbol and may be the same or different than your ID name. The @
symbol name is the tag, which links directly to that person’s Twitter
page. Occasionally tweets in your feed
will be promotional ads, and are marked as such.
In your newsfeed. Clicking
on links in Twitter is relatively safe.
Be sure to look at the source of the link, making sure you follow the
person or organization tweeting or retweeting it. Some put “RT” at the top of a retweet, but
this isn’t necessary, as retweets are marked with green arrows in the top left
of the window. MT is a paraphrasing of someone else’s tweet (occasionally necessary
due to character limit).
If you wish to comment on a tweet, right beneath the tweet
click on ‘expand’. A comment field and
others’ comments (if any) will appear, as well as buttons to reply, retweet
(share on your twitter page) and favourite.
Clicking on ‘more’, allows you to share or retweet in a comment on a
blog or other social media.
To follow a member of Twitter, whether an individual or
organization, type the name, say, Globe and Mail, in the search bar. From the
drop down list, which auto-suggest as you type, choose the closest match. Click
on it. You’ll be taken to the page. You can look around the page to make sure
it’s the person or organization you had in mind. Then you simply click on the ‘follow’
button on that person’s or organization’s page. They may or may not follow you,
but the next time you click ‘home’ to visit your newsfeed will include their
latest tweets. If you see a comment that intrigues you in your newsfeed by
someone you do not follow (often a retweet or a comment on the tweet of someone
you follow) and you think you might want check them out, perhaps follow them,
you can also find their page by clicking on their avatar or @name tag. Just because someone follows you, you are not
obligated to follow them. You can also unfollow anyone at any time.
There are bots on Twitter, even with limits on the number of
tweets as well as follows. These bots mostly want to sell you something. Some
lead to erotica pages. Bots do not participate in conversations, post comments
or retweet your witty comments, etc. Quotation bot pages seem to be popular and
quite harmless. Bots seek out people to
follow. Anyone, human or bot, whom you don’t want as a follower can be blocked
or ‘muted’. Muting is a kinder choice for a humans you follow who post
mulitiple tweets about topics you have no interest in.
#Hashtags. When you type the # symbol with a keyword after
it, at the end of your comment/ photo, such as #painting. Anyone who happens to
type #painting into the search bar, would see my picture among others posted
recently. With the election going on, many users are tagging their comments
about the candidates with #TOpoli. This stands for Toronto politics. To find
out the latest election developments, I can simply search #TOpoli. This will take me directly to a page devoted
to comments hashtagged #TOpoli. If you
want your followers to find your comment, say, on a restaurant you liked, if
you type #Italianrestaurant, you’ll have better luck than if you typed #bestfettucinialfredoever. This hashtag could bring up restaurants, but
also recipes, or it could be the lone entry on a #page. Choose the general rather than the
specific. As you type a hashtag in your
search bar or comment box, Twitter will auto-suggest a list of popular
hashtags.
Direct Messages
As with facebook you can send and receive private messages
that are not shared on the newsfeed. To send a direct message or DM, go to the
person’s page and you will see a ‘message’ next to the ‘tweet to’ button just
below the individual’s avatar. When you receive a message or reply a number
indicating the amount of notes you have will appear on the ‘envelop’ icon on
the task bar. To open messages, click on the ‘envelop’. Scroll down. Click on the new message to open
it (which includes a reply box at the bottom.) DMs are one of several features
which use the (windows) grey screen for security.
What’s ‘Trending’
Popular hashtags and searches of the moment are displayed on
the left of your newsfeed. I don’t use this feature much, but it might be useful
after a vacation from the internet to catch up quickly news you follow.
#Discover
This page uses an algorithm to supposedly find the tweets
you’d most want to see. Your newsfeed is chronological, newest tweets appearing
first. I’m guessing that ‘Discover’ chooses content based on popularity and followers
or topics you’ve shown the most interest in (as Facebook does for their
newsfeeds). Anyway it’s an option for those who prefer their news
filtered.
The Rules of Twitter:
Always read the fine print.
Twitter aims to be a nice place:
Also Terms of Service:
And Guidelines and Best Practices:
Unlike news and other forums or groups online, Twitter (and
Facebook) isn’t moderated and relies on you to report spam and abuses such as
stalking, bullying or pornography.
Note for those posting their copyrighted material (visual
art, poetry, prose), unlike Facebook, your ownership is clear and
respected. However your art can be
retweeted around to the point that your name could become distant or even
separated from it. I’ve had a few notifications saying I was ‘mentioned’ in a
Tweet, which included a jpg of my artwork. ‘Mentioned’ means that at least my
tag, @MargaretChown was still attached to it.
The Twitterverse
Twitter had its 8th birthday in July 2014. At election time or when big news stories
occur, it’s not uncommon for TV and radio newscasters to quote comments from
the ‘Twitterverse’ or gauge public opinion based on tweets, or quote tweets in
print and broadcast newsmedia.
What you do on any social media website is up to you. But consider the consequences of, for
example, publicizing someone’s contact information (address and phone number). What if you have it wrong and what if harm
comes to those at that address as a result of your post? This actually happened.
Joke accounts: http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/the-savvy-trend-spotters-who-create-twitter-parodies-1.2712550?cmp=rss These are fun, often very clever and naughty.
The character limit can make your posts sound rather
pithy. Sometimes, like newspaper
headlines, brevity can lead to confusing grammar. Also you may be just joking, but that may not
come across on the screen. As with any
post, count to ten before you send.
Twitter across other
social media
You can create a link to a tweet in a comment on another
social media account. To do so, go to
the tweet you’d like to link, click on details, then copy the url that appears
in your browser bar. Paste the link in a
post or message on facebook, your blog or elsewhere.
You can embed a tweet (fully clickable) into your website of
blog by going to the tweet, selecting ‘more’ and then ‘embed this tweet’.
To add the Twitter button to your website or add a tweet to
your website follow instructions from Twittter Help Centre: https://support.twitter.com/groups/52-notifications/topics/211-tweeting/articles/231474-adding-the-tweet-button-to-your-website#
From Twitter Help Centre:
Getting Started with the Twitter Mobile app:
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