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Twitter: A Simple Explanation!
By admin | March 14, 2009
Since I use twitter as a part of my social media ministry outreach, almost without fail, the first question I am asked is “What is Twitter?” Without being complicated I thought I would try to write a definition that almost everyone could understand.
A dictionary definition of twitter would read something like, “Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that allows users to send updates (otherwise known as tweets) which are text-based and answer the question ‘What are you doing now?’ “.
Nope I did not understand that either, but because twitter is so versatile and easy to use explaining what it is can be difficult. It may be easier to talk about how it is used and then let you define it for yourself. After all, the bottom line is that twitter is a relational community where you can define your own relationships
To start with, think of a group of friends on a 1920’s telephone party line. In the old days, many phone systems, especially in rural areas, did not have phone lines that served only one house. When a call came in for your neighbor, your phone would ring as well. If you were nosey, and many people were, you could hear everything your neighbor said during their call.
Twitter is almost just like that, except each person picks the people they want to listen in on. The people who they select to listen to may be from around the corner or around the world. When they pick someone to listen to, they become a follower of that person.
In general, listeners will only hear the messages (called tweets) that are sent from those they choose to follow. There are some exceptions to this, but not many. It is important to realize that just because you are following someone, that person will generally not see your messages unless you talk directly to them. More on that later.
You can initially select a maximum of 2000 people to follow, although most people will take 6 months to 1 year before they follow large numbers of people on twitter (called tweeps).
Returning for a moment to our party line analogy, there are those who listen (followers) and those who talk. When others decide to follow you, you become one of the talkers who people are listening to. When you listen to someone else, you are following them. Unlike our party line telephone, you want people to listen to your conversations.
So, in addition to following people, you want to get people (tweeps) to follow you. To really understand twitter, you must remember that only people who follow you will generally see and read the messages (tweets) that you are sending out. Further, you will only see the tweets from those that you are following.
In the early days of twitter, tweeps usually entered messages that answered the question “What are you doing now”. Although some of that still occurs, twitter has really evolved to a complete community interest dialoging platform. More a small message blog than statements about feeding the baby, or driving to work.
When people follow someone on twitter, it is really a honor and it says several things, such as: 1) you are interesting and what you say adds value to them 2) you have similar interests as they do 3) you know people that they don’t know but they can learn from who you know.
More importantly, to have a true conversation, you want people to follow you, so they hear what you say, but you also want to follow these same folks so you can hear them, in order to have a true conversation. This type of reciprocal relationship does not happen automatically, each tweep must choose whom they will follow.
Many people do not feel the need to have reciprocal relationships, they are content to talk and when someone wants to talk back to them, they can send them a tweet with their name to get their attention. As I said, everyone can define the nature of his or her relationships on twitter
Ok, so now you have a feel for the relationship model that twitter uses. Now let’s look at the environment these relationships exist in.
All messages that are sent on twitter are limited to a maximum of 140 characters. Yep, that’s all you get for any one message. You can however, send several messages in succession to convey a complete thought.
Each person who uses twitter has a home page that contains the messages they have sent to others. Once that user logs into twitter their home page changes and shows not only the tweets they have sent, but also, tweets from those that they follow. This list of messages (tweets) is called their twitter stream.
Twitter Users Home Page
The twitter page for every user also contains several other important pieces of information. You can see how many people a person is following, how many people follow that person, and the total number of tweets (updates) they have posted. This information can be somewhat important when you are choosing who you will follow. People with a large number of followers and frequent updates, may indicate someone who is engaged and provides good conversation. Conversely, someone who has no followers and no updates is likely a beginner who just created a page but who is not involved.
It is up to each user to make decisions as to who they will follow. It is important to note that, until you have close to 2000 followers following you, you will be limited to following only 2000 people. When you reach that limit, you will not be able to follow anyone else; no matter how interesting they are, until you drop some people you are currently following.
Functioning in the tworld, let’s take a look at how all this information fits together in a normal operation
When you signup for twitter, you will select a unique name for yourself. Make sure this name is SHORT, under 10 characters is ideal. This name is used for several things. The first is that the URL of your twitter homepage will be http://twitter.com/YOUR_TWITTER_NAME this is where people will come to see you, read your profile, and decide whether to follow you.
Remember me saying, that in general the only people who can see your tweets (messages) are those who follow you? Well there is an important exception to that rule. A twitter user can send a public tweet and bring the message into someone else’s stream by placing the @ sign in front of the persons twitter name like this @TWITTER_NAME. If the @ sign is not included, twitter will not know this is directed at that persons stream and they will generally never see it.
Also, twitter can be persnickety about what ends up in the stream of others. I have noticed two things 1) the @twitter_name should always be the first item in the tweet, even saying “Hi @twitter_name” is not guaranteed to place the message in their stream, and 2) sometimes placing two names may allow both to see it in their stream, but it is not certain.
So, if you are not one of my followers, you can still send me a public message that will be in my stream, by including @ifeelgod as the first characters in your tweet. However, your message will not be seen by anyone else following me, but all of your followers will also see the message. (Remember the party line)
By the way, be sure to follow me. Log into twitter and visit http://twitter.com/ifeelgod then click follow. This is the process you will use to follow anyone on twitter. When you follow someone, you will begin to see their tweets in your stream. In other words, you will be able to hear what they are saying. Whenever you follow me, I will immediately become one of your followers as well.
I would be honored to be one of the first people to follow you!
Final Thoughts,
In addition to accessing twitter through the standard twitter interface, there are several client applications, which tend to make twitter more versatile and easier to use. Among the more popular twitter user clients are twirl, tweetdeck, peoplebrowsr and many more. These applications are great for organizing your twitter access & searching for relevant conversations on twitter. Try them, as you get more familiar with the community.
You can also send a private (only seen by recipient) tweet to anyone who is following you. These messages are call Direct Messages or DM’s. You cannot send a private tweet (DM) to anyone that is NOT following you, even if you are following them. To send a friend a DM, use the direct command: “d username message” (without quotes). Do not include the @ for the username in private tweets
I could not cover several topics within the scope of the article. I did not talk about favorites, hash tags, groups, auto follow, or retweets. These will all come in time and are not critical to getting started. However, go ahead and get your feet wet… you won’t regret it.
JMb <><
Bishop James ‘I Feel God’ Brown
The Internet’s Favorite Pastor
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social media ministry, ministry outreach, tweets, tweeps, tweople, twitter, dictionary definition, social networking, follower, twitter follower, following on twitter, relationships
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