ALL  A  TWITTER  'BOUT  TWEETS AND TWEETING

By: N.L. Goodman

Let's do it, people! It is the new and quintessential party-line. And we're going to break it down, step by step. Why, because it's a valuable and useful means of communication. And in today's technological multi-communication's era, we need clarity and concise direction to maximize all that we want and have to do.

Tweeting is fast, easy and really, really fun!

Here it goes, plain and simple:

Set up your account, the usual – name, user name, and password. Your user name is that which appears everywhere – on tweets, on replies, on retweets. Your name is that which appears on your picture. Your picture or icon if you wish appears under "followers" and "following".

Let's now go over the verbiage or, twefinitions:

Tweet – The written text that you or others write.

Retweet – Someone else's text/tweet that you (re)send to everyone who follows you.

Followers – People who have checked the box to follow you in order to receive your tweets in their timeline/"home" page. A "follower" receives all of your tweets. Your tweets come across their timeline/"home" page in the order in which they were written.

Following – People who you have chosen to follow.

Reply – A direct connection to a person who may or may not be one of your followers.

Hashtag – a number symbol and a few of concise letters forming a coherent title, which references the intent and content of the group. Commonly used for conferences and groups of specific interest; such as, #art, #photography, #mobile #leweb. Hashtag groups have their own timeline. Hashtags are placed within your 140 character lines and then are automatically placed. It is overly common to place hash, and then have then NOT appear in the hashtag group; sometimes it is because you are too new of a user, sometimes it is simply because it's lost somewhere in cyber-space.

List – a grouping of people that you like to follow. A list is quite handy for other's to follow, too, as you have already compiled it, and all one needs to do is follow your list, rather than compiling their own or going to each person individually or cluttering their timeline with that particular grouping of people.

Twetiquette
There does exist tweeting etiquette. Such as, do not over-tweet. If you are using your account as a business tool, use it thusly. Your followers do not really care about your adorable niece and nephew and when they were toilet trained or how many beans they stuffed into your Les Paul. But your followers will care if they soaked your Googlephone Nexus, and how placing it in a bag of rice absorbed the moisture and saved your device. Conversely, if you are using your account to keep in touch with your friends and the artsy "hair ball" is coming up in a couple of days, don't clutter your timeline and theirs with information about the crabby cabbie who couldn't get you from Trafalgar Square to Kings Road because he thought you were a tourista. And for goodness sake, do not over-tweet! Unless, that is, you have incredible breaking news or information. But don't just twamble-on about superfluous junk; if you have something to say, let it be worthy. Don't waste your followers' time. Ultimately, don't be a twit about your tweets.

Twitterers - Why and Who
Why tweet? It is an incredibly quick way to communicate and to gain social capitalism. It is like a real-time rss feed of that which you say, and that which your followers say. Twitter is similar to a headline news-specific network, which you created.

Additionally, it is a great tool for marketers. To get the word out about your clients' products or services. Even to market yourself, just remember the rules of etiquette, ah, twetiquette.

If you are a community organizer, politician or social secretary, twitter is like no other social capital media networking tool or social device.

Now, if you are using it as a people-party-line, it's an immediate means of keeping up on the moment, the times and the situation. Such as, your location in the room or airport; en route; if the route is obstructed, etc.

The greatest benefit is that you do not have to go to everyone's "wall", or "live-news feed"

Tweet time-lines are immediate and are there for everyone to view and with which to participate. The most wonderful aspect of tweets is that all tweets are located on one concise page, with a limited amount of text. This concept lends to exceptionally quick reading and therefore exceptionally quick mental processing.

Keep in mind one thing, if you are marketing yourself, and that is, it is not about how many followers you have, but how many followers find you valuable; conversely, it is not about how many you follow, but the quality of those whom you follow.

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