Twitter is an online platform that allows users to share short messages called tweets. Tweets can be used to communicate brief ideas to others, promote a business or ideas, and connect with people who share similar interests. Users can sign up for free on the Twitter website and then find people to follow based on keywords or suggested accounts. Once signed up, they can publish their own tweets, retweet content from others, and follow discussions tagged with hashtags.

1. A closer look at Twitter You might be surprised

2. What is Twitter? An online website A way to communicate a basic idea to a bunch of people. A showcase for your business or ideas A network of hundreds of like minded people Texting by computer All in 140 or less characters!

4. Break the news when something major is going down

5. Create a quick connection between family and friends

6. Keep abreast of current news and trends

7. Promote your business or your ideas

8. Look for a job

10. Sign in to Twitter, (cont.) Step 4: Your new screen. Choose interests by either choosing a preset interest (in blue) or type in keyword (like cats) Step 5: You need to follow me. Type in my username (mprine) and click “search” Step 6: Look at all those possibilities! Can you find me? Click “follow”.

11. Sign in to Twitter, (cont.) Step 7: Voia! You have found me! Step 8: Find people with similar interests by either typing in a keyword (like “cats”) or choosing a suggested one (in blue). Remember to click “search” and then “follow” (Look at all these possibilities for cats! I guess people love them…)

12. Sign in to Twitter, (cont.) Step 9: Import your friends from your e-mails. If your friends are on twitter, you will find them here. Click your e-mail account, and you will be sent to their site. Follow the instructions! NOTE: At the bottom of the screen, you can choose to “skip import”. Your screen. Look at all the “tweets” from your new cat friends! Also note, on the right, the things you can do to personalize your account. Also note that Twitter will e-mail you and ask you to verify your account.

13. Sign in to Twitter, (cont.) Review your settings page. You will find this page when you click the down arrow next to your name and click “settings”.

14. Sign in to Twitter, (cont.) Hate Twitter? Click the “deactivate my account” button on the bottom of the settings page. Confirm that you really want to deactivate the account. You will have to retype your password. And you are no longer on Twitter!

15. Top Followed People on Twitter* Ashton Kutcher @aplusk - 2,839,000 followers Ellen DeGeneres @TheEllenShow - 2,541,000 followers Britney Spears @britneyspears - 2,500,000 followers CNN Breaking News @cnnbrk - 2,310,000 followers Oprah Winfrey@Oprah - 1,908,000 followers Ryan Seacrest @RyanSeacrest - 1,767,000 followers John Mayer @johncmayer - 1,759,000 followers Barack Obama@BarackObama - 1,755,000 followers Shaquille O'Neal @THE_REAL_SHAQ - 1,708,000 followers Mary Burns Prine @mprine (OK, maybe not that many, but I am followed by the important ones!) * According to Wikipedia

16. Hashtags What are people “tweeting” about? You can track conversations if they have been tagged with “hashtags” A hashtag is recognized by the symbol “#” followed by a word. It can be a business (#retail), a celebrity (#britneyspears), an educational interest of yours (#elearning), an environmental issue (#aid), a discussion of social change (#4change), even television shows (#graysanatomy) Is your favorite idea a hash tag? Go to hashtags.org and type in your word, show, movie, idea or whatever. Or better yet, Charlie Sheen has popularized the hashtag #winning. Why not type that into the box?

17. Retweet & insert a name Did someone tweet something that you thought was really interesting? Then retweet it. Copy the post, go to your account, type in the letters “R.T.”(no space) then paste the complete post that you like. It will send it back out as a retweet. Now your friends can all benefit from the tweet that you enjoyed. Do you want to acknowledge something that another tweet friend said or did? Then type the character “@”and the name of the tweet site (like @mprine). This will be sent back to this person, and they will know you are thinking of them. When you do this, it is public, and available for everyone to see. If you don’t want everyone to see it, you can send a direct message to a person you are following. You can go to their page (click on their name) and “message them”.

18. We’ll stop for now and give you a chance to absorb the world of Twitter. Play around with it, post tweets, respond to tweets, look for topics of interest. Follow people, find events, and contact me mprine@sdccd.edu for additional questions. If you are on Twitter, then follow me! (twitter.com/mprine). Have fun Tweeting on Twitter!!!