Turbo Lemon Media

This is a glossary of terms for the beginner in Twitter. We don’t want to overwhelm you and smack you in the face with jargon. We don’t want to be as comprehensive or exhaustive as the fantastic Twictionary. That’s why we’re keeping it short, keeping it simple.

Tweet – a post or update of no more than 140 characters. Think of it of a text message that everyone can see.

Retweet (RT) – a reposting of someone else’s Tweet, usually because it’s interesting or useful.  Being Retweeted means more exposure and visibility.

Follow/Following – Following somebody means you’ll be able to receive/read their tweets as they’re posted in real-time.  If they Follow you, they will read what you Tweet.

@Replies -these are  a direct  reference/Tweet at a specific Twitter user.  This is done by putting their username directly after the @ symbol) at the start of your Tweet. @TurboLemonMedia, for example.  This encourages dialogue and conversation.

@Mention – Much like the @Reply, though an @Mention is inserted at any point except the beginning of a Tweet.

Hashtags – by adding a #hashtag before a keyword in your Tweet, it adds context and metadata to it, making organisation and searches much simpler. It’s Twitter’s version of a tag.

Direct Message (DM) – this is a private message sent to another Twitter user who must be following you in order to receive it.

Twitter List – a user-compiled list that displays that group/lists Tweets. A benefit of a Following a Twitter List is that you don’t have to Follow all the List’s members to see the stream of updates.

Trending Topics – these are a snapshot of what’s popular in Twitter at any given point in time. You can set your Trending Topics to be local to the UK (instead of global popularity).

Search – does what it says on the tin, using Twitter Search to bring real-time results from peoples’ Tweets.

Automation – using existing tools to automatically Retweet, Follow or Direct Message users.

#followfriday – is a recurring Trending Topic whereby user recommend you follow other users. Good practice is to say who to follow and a little bit about why.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 15th, 2010 at 4:26 pm and is filed under Enterprise, Networking, social media, twitter. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.