What is Twitter?
Twitter is a website that offers social networking and micro-blogging services that enable you to post messages up to 140 characters that is called a Tweet to other Twitter users. These tweets are being posted on the author’s profile page and anyone who subscribe to your Tweets called followers can only see these tweets.
Why Twitter?
If you want to let others know “what you are doing right now” you can do this by posting tweets and letting other Twitter users know particularly your followers read about it. As you already know, Twitter is widely used to deliver your ideas, thoughts, opinions and just anything you like to share with others. This can be done by dissemination of your message in “real time” to your followers. Even it is too short having only 140 characters per tweet yet it is powerful that can reach millions of people. Moreover, Twitter is a great tool to get to know other people who you might have the same interest with or someone who share the same enthusiasm and area of expertise with you.
Today, Twitter has grown significantly as a useful self-promotional tool for products and services. If you want to reach millions of people to raise awareness and establish your brand, Twitter is the best tool for that.
Twitter’s Brief History
On March 2006, Twitter was established by Biz Stone, Jack Dorsey and Evan Williams. It was on 2006 that Biz Stone and Williams co-founded Obvious Corp along with other former employees of Odeo. On October 2004, Williams left Google. And on 2007, Twitter had become a standalone company. That time, Jack Dorsey was the CEO of Twitter until October 2008 when Williams took the position while Dorsey became the chairman of the board.
Twitter Terminology
Tweet
A message that is composed of 140 characters that a twitter user posts that is called a Tweet.
Handle
When you sign up on Twitter, the name you gave to yourself is called a Handle.
Reply (@)
On Twitter, the @ symbol is used to mention another Twitter user. You use @ to send a message to another twitter user or if you want to talk about her in your tweet. Just type @ + twittername.
Retweet (RT)
If you would like to post again someone else’s tweet you can do this by retweeting. Just type RT plus the message you want to retweet.
Direct Message (DM)
A personal message from a Twitter user to another is called a direct message. These messages are stored in every Twitter user’s direct message Inbox.
Follow
If you want to subscribe to a specific Twitter user you can do this by following that someone. When you follow someone you’ll be able to see his posts on your home page.