A broad overview of everything to do with twitter. Aimed at the newcomer who may have heard of twitter, and would like to know more. This slideshow is from a presentation that I give regularly at my local community network.

1. Twitter 101
Keith Bradnam
Slides from a presentation to the Davis Community Network, 22nd September 2011
Author: Keith Bradnam,
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0
Unported License.

2. Outline

3. What is twitter?
Why use twitter?
How to use twitter?

4. Some background

5. What twitter is...
‘Microblogging’ service
‘Social networking’ tool
Messaging service hosted over the Internet and SMS
Way to broadcast short messages (<140 characters)
Messages can contain links to pictures, web pages etc.
Free!
The 140 character limit was chosen as the developers of Twitter wanted to be able to use all
cell phones to send and retrieve tweets, and the SMS character limit is 160 (per text
message).

6. Simple twitter overview
Davis awarded Platinum
bike status again
Forecast to reach 97ºF
tomorrow. Urghh.
Cute kitten pics! - http://
flickr.com/F8Fa8
Hope Tony Romo’s ribs
don’t break again
Different people within the twitter ‘ecosystem’ (dotted line) send out various messages
(‘tweets’) at various times of the day.

7. Simple twitter overview
Davis awarded Platinum
bike status again
Forecast to reach 97ºF
tomorrow. Urghh.
Cute kitten pics! - http://
flickr.com/F8Fa8 Non-twitter
user
Hope Tony Romo’s ribs
don’t break again
Most tweets from twitter users can still be seen by non-twitter users by going to the twitter
website. However, they would have to view separate webpages for each person that they are
interested in.

8. Simple twitter overview
Davis awarded Platinum
bike status again
Forecast to reach 97ºF
tomorrow. Urghh.
Cute kitten pics! - http://
flickr.com/F8Fa8
Hope Tony Romo’s ribs
don’t break again
Other users who are within the twitter ecosystem (i.e. they have a twitter account) can simply
specify the users they are interested in and they will then be able to see all tweets in *one*
stream (presented in a chronological order).

9. Simple twitter overview
Davis awarded Platinum
bike status again
Forecast to reach 97ºF
tomorrow. Urghh.
Cute kitten pics! - http://
flickr.com/F8Fa8
Hope Tony Romo’s ribs
don’t break again

10. What twitter is not...
Not facebook
Not a forum for verbose discussions
Not the best tool for sharing lots of photos
Not great for commenting on old news
Not available in China
Some countries choose to ban services like twitter.

11. Who uses twitter?
@oprah @ucdavis @bp_america
@cnn @amnesty
@kdvs903fm
@kingsthings
@nytimes @crepevilledavis
@npr
@conanobrien @comcast @bbc
@yournamehere
All news organizations and most celebrities can now be found on twitter. Increasingly, many
more smaller companies and non-profits now have a presence as well. However, the largest
number of twitter accounts are held by ‘regular’ people.

12. What’s the point?

13. What’s twitter for?
“Don’t people just talk about what they had for lunch?”
It is true that twitter contains many, many tweets that will not cause you to have a life-
changing experience. The signal-to-noise ratio can be very low at times. That is not to say
that some tweets are not important or useful...

14. This is why it can matter
Twitter can be a source of
real time news, unfiltered by
any news organization
Increasingly, more and more people carry smart phones (with cameras). This has led to the
rise of the ‘citizen journalist’. If you have a phone with you when news is breaking, then you
can be the first person in the world to report on the news.

15. This is why it can matter
Alerting people about major natural disasters, arranging civil protests, or just letting people
know of traffic problems that might delay your commute home...twitter can be great source
of news, that will typically be faster than any traditional media outlet.

16. 230M
Twitter is still growing
Currently, ~300 million users. ~500,000 new users per day!
Twitter continues to grow. Note that most accounts are held by people who tweet very
infrequently (if at all).

17. Tweets are newsworthy?
Easier for news organizations to gauge public opinion
News organizations used to send out reporters to get the opinion of the ‘man or woman on
the street’. Now they can just search twitter to find out the mood of the nation on any issue
of the day.

18. Growth of the twitter
ecosystem

19. The twitter ecosystem
Twitter only manages text-based messages...
...but other companies can mine this data stream

20. Any website from any reputable company or organization is likely to contain a link to their
twitter account.

21. Any many websites make it very easy to tweet about whatever you’re reading.

22. If you are signed into twitter, then it’s just two clicks in order to send a tweet

23. Other sites can be authorized to
work with your twitter data
Other sites such as LinkedIn, facebook, and many others, can all be authorized to access your
twitter account. A status update on one site can also be sent to your twitter account (and vice
versa).

24. The twitter ecosystem
There are 100’s of websites that support & extend twitter
Many companies have made their name (and their livelihood) by supporting twitter.

25. twitter keeps expanding
Twitter now aggregates pictures that you tweet about
Sometimes twitter makes moves that steps on the toes on these companies, and conceivably
might threaten their business.

26. How you can
(productively) use twitter

27. Passive
Keep tabs on friends and family
Find out latest news about subject ‘x’
See what your favorite celebrity is up to
Get updates on weather, sports results, earthquakes etc.
See promotions from your favorite companies
It’s perfectly fine to use twitter and never write a tweet...just use it to follow others.

28. Active
Tweet about your life
Post a link to something interesting
Ask a question to your followers, get feedback on an idea
Interact with your customers/users/students etc.
Promote your blog/company
Make new friends
‘Live-tweet’ an event
However, actively engaging with twitter can be very rewarding.

29. Real world examples
Headphones
Comcast
Power outages
I once found out about the design of some headphones that I was interested in by contacting
someone who just tweeted about them. The information I needed to know was nowhere on
the web, and my email to the company responsible went unanswered. Twitter saved the day.

30. Twitter terminology

31. tweets
Most tweets are broadcast publicly...anyone can read them
All tweets also track details of time and date of tweet and client used to send tweet

32. the timeline
tweets from people you follow
appear together in the timeline
Sorted by date
Updates in real time (sort of)
The timeline is the main way people engage with twitter. The timeline can be accessed on the
twitter website, from a desktop application, or from your phone, iPad etc.

33. mentions
Mentions are only seen by people who follow both accounts
You can reply to tweets. These are known as mentions and twitter tracks the association
between the tweets that form a ‘conversation’. Mentions are just tweets that start with the
name of the twitter account that you are replying to. This name uses up some of your 140
characters though.

34. direct messages (DMs)
Direct messages are only seen by recipient.
This is like twitter’s in-house email system

35. retweets - 1
Retweeting is the action of flagging a tweet to your followers
Retweeting allows people who follow you to become aware of tweets you find interesting,
funny etc. This can be a good thing, but not if it is overused. Web and desktop clients allow
you to easily retweet by clicking on one link.

36. retweets - 2
This is twitter’s newer style of retweeting tweets
You receive email notifications if one of your tweets is retweeted.

37. retweets - 3
Old style retweeting, just add ‘RT @username’ before tweet
You can also retweet by essentially copying and pasting a tweet but then adding ‘RT’ before
it. The ‘RT’ + username eats into your 140 characters though, and you may have to edit the
message to make it fit. The need to edit messages is what led to twitter introducing the
newer style of retweeting.

38. retweets - 4
Having your tweets retweeted by others is a good thing...
...but it is not the only thing
Only 6% of tweets are retweeted
92% of retweets occurs in first hour

39. Twitter accounts

40. About accounts
Accounts can be public or private
You can follow other twitter accounts
Other accounts can follow you
You can search accounts
You don’t need an account to see people’s tweets

41. Followers vs following
Followers Following
@kbradnam
@karrwinn @jwalls
@nerdytwin @trimike
@UCD123 @MitoThomas
@JanedeLatigue @JanedeLatigue
Details of followers/following is public
You don’t have to follow someone just because they follow you!

42. Which type of account?
Public Private
Anyone can follow you You approve who follows you
Tweets are only visible to
All tweets are public
people you approve
You can still block users from Far less common than public
following you accounts
Private accounts are quite rare.

43. Searching tweets
Twitter can let you search
tweets from all accounts
The ability to quickly search millions and millions of tweets is one of the most powerful
features of twitter. It lets you find tweets on any subject you might be interested in.

44. Twitter tools

45. Some features of twitter
Favorites
Hashtags
Trends
Twitter lists
Twitter keeps adding new features (though maybe just 1–2 major features a year)

46. The main page of the twitter website is separated into various panels. This is what a user
might see when they are logged into an account. There are a lot of links on this page.

47. Favorites
Just a way of ‘bookmarking’ a tweet
Useful when tweets have interesting links to read later
Favorites are public
Common to ‘favorite’ a tweet which you see on your phone, especially if it contains a link to
something, and then read later on when you get back to your computer (favorites are synced
between your devices).

48. How to favorite a tweet
Note that favorites are publicly available for anyone to see. You also get an email if someone
‘favorites’ one of your tweets.

49. hashtags
A useful way of flagging keywords in a tweet
Just put a hash character before a word (no spaces)
#ucdavis
#idol
#genbio2010
It is easy to find other tweets that use the same hashtag
Hashtags turn words into clickable links that link to all other tweets that share the same
hashtag. Used a lot for sports games (and teams), TV shows, scientific conferences, and other
‘events’. But can be used for anything.

50. Hashtags are clickable

51. trends
twitter keeps track of
words, phrases, and
hashtags that are popular
Keeps a list of ‘trending
topics’ on home page
You can see trends for the world, different countries, or some major cities.

52. twitter lists
An easy way of grouping together different users
You don’t have to follow someone to put them in a list
Can follow other people’s lists
Lists can be made private

53. Lists can be public or private (one list in this image is private, denoted by the padlock icon).

54. You can add people to lists who you don’t follow as part of your main timeline. You can also
follow lists by other people.

55. Some do’s and don’ts

56. Do
Engage with people
Try following people that you don’t know
Be wary of twitter spam
Add a picture and write something for your twitter ‘bio’
It makes a huge difference to how you are perceived by others. People are much more likely
to follow you if you add information to your twitter bio.

57. Don’t
Send too many tweets in a row about one topic
Use twitter for conversations with your partner/family
Worry about your follower count
Expect to read all the tweets from all the people you follow
Follow everyone who follows you
Your twitter stream can easily become overwhelming as you follow more and more people.
Don’t expect to always read everything. Treat it like a stream and just dip your foot in every
now and again. If there are people who you feel you *must* follow, add them to a list to make
it easier to follow their tweets.

58. Twitter is fairly good at getting rid of dubious accounts. When someone follows you, twitter
sends you an email and if they have never tweeted, and follow thousands of other people,
then maybe consider reporting them to twitter.

59. Twitter clients

60. Many ways of using twitter
Originally, you could only send tweets on the twitter web site
or by phone (SMS message)
Now there almost a 1,000 different ways of tweeting...from
any platform
Twitter have started to create their own ‘official’ twitter
applications for each major platform

61. Take twitter anywhere
Platform Number of clients
Windows >160
Mac >130
Linux >50
iPhone/iPod >270
Android >60
Blackberry >40

62. Why use a client?
Go mobile!
Software to suit all styles
Added functionality compared to web client
Better support for adding photos, videos, web links etc
Caution: not all clients support all twitter features
Personally, I find most clients end up offering a simpler and cleaner experience than the
twitter website.

63. Final thoughts

64. twitter keep changing
The website keeps changing
The set of available features keeps changing
The ‘rules’ keep changing
But nowhere near as often as a site like facebook.

65. twitter is a business
It is free – and will almost certainly remain free – but...
...it has to make money somehow

66. Advertising
Promoted tweets
Sponsored trends
Will adverts start appearing in between ‘regular’ tweets?
Adverts that appear in your main timeline seem on the cards. One good thing about these
adverts is that they still follow the twitter rules. No more than 140 characters!

67. Should you use twitter?
Yes
No
Maybe
Twitter is not for everyone, but I personally find it rewarding and useful. I’ve met some great
people through twitter, and it’s now the first place where I hear about news happening (in my
town or across the world). There are people and companies out there who can educate,
inform, and entertain you...all in 140 characters or less!

68. The End

69. What else?
Saved searches
Multiple accounts
Twitter locations
The fail whale
There are many other features, aspects of twitter that I haven’t covered here.

70. Useful twitter resources
@kbradnam’s Davis twitter lists
Other twitter users!
http://friendorfollow.com
http://tweetstats.com
http://twittergrader.com
http://bit.ly
http://oneforty.com