eBid Widgets

If you’ve never used Twitter it can seem pretty mystifying. So for brand new users (or those who wish to join) here are a few basic concepts to get you started.

Social Networking

Twitter, like Facebook, MySpace and others, is a Social Network. It works by putting people in touch with each other. It starts, typically, with people you already know, then via those people and their friends you get to “meet” others. 

Following

The construct on Twitter is the “follow”. You follow other people, they follow you. The list of followers and followees does not need to match, but will usually overlap by a large degree. Note that this differs from the Facebook or eBid “friends” idea where a single list means all interaction is always mutual. By separating your contacts into people you follow, and those who follow you, it means you can be reading tweets from people who aren’t seeing yours (unless you address them directly, see @replies later).

Tweets

The messages on Twitter are called tweets. This has led to a whole bunch of related names and nicknames. Some you will see include:

• Tweeter - one who tweets
• Tweople/Tweeple - people on Twitter
• Twitterverse - twitter universe, the whole Twitter environment

Retweet

You can resend tweets you read and like by retweeting. The Twitter web interface has a way of doing this, and all the third-party software interfaces likewise. Alternatively you can simply repeat the tweet in your own status and precede the message with RT for ReTweet. A messaging including “pls RT” or similar is asking you to retweet it, if you wouldn’t mind - this expands the audience and is popular with charity tweets and requests for help.

Reply/@replies

Replies intended for a particular person are also called @replies, because they need to contain the @identity of the person being addressed. e.g. any message you wish to bring to my attention should include @ebidwidgets or  @bykimbo (personal account) or @YDC_Fundraising (eBid YDC account). The @part can go anywhere in the message for the recipient to see it, but if you put it at the front only the recipient and those who are following both of you will see it. @identity at the very front of the message denotes a reply just to that person and is visible only to mutual followers. @identity inside a message is a reference to that person and will be seen by all of your followers. 

Direct Message/DMs

If you need to speak to a person in private use DM not @reply. As said, @replies are visible to all mutual followers; DMs are completely private.

Hashtags/#hashtags

Hashtags are tags or keywords in the Twitterverse. If your tweet is on a particular subject you do not need to explain the context in full, you can just add a hashtag. You can make these up on the spot, or use ones that are in popular use. For example, #epicfail is a popular hashtag to show that you consider what you’re tweeting about to have been a major c*ck-up! Or if you want to make up your own and be more specific you could invent #droppedplateonfoot or #burntdinner. Since it’s possible to search Twitter by #hashtag (simply put the #hashtag in the search box!) you can easily see all messages floating around the Twitterverse on the same subject. 

Twitter on eBid

eBid provides Social Networking buttons at the bottom of most pages. These allow you to interface to your Twitter account easily and quickly.  If you click on the Twitter button the 3rd party app TweetMeme will pop up and let you tweet about the page in question. See my how-to video (HTV) on the eBid Help pages to see how this works.

Those are the basics, and should explain enough to get you started. You’ll need to make yourself a Twitter account (just register at the site and follow the instructions) and find some friends to follow to kick-off. You’ve got my @identities above, so why not start with me? 

All the best, and happy tweeting.