Twitter Basics for Non-techies (like me)

Twitter for Starters

Learn Twitter Basics

How to

• Watch a video overview of Twitter• Create a Twitter account• Update your status (start twittering)• Search for people with the same interests to follow• Reply to someones tweet• Save a tweet (favourite) to read later• Direct message someone you are following

or

Your Internet browser would normally be Internet Explorer or Firefox. If you have a Mac it will be Safari

Open your web browser

Search for Twitter.com

Open Twitter.com

Twitter home page

Watch the video

Watch the Common Craft video to get an overviewof Twitter

Get started with Twitter

You need to:

• Decide and enter a username

Remember you are creating an online identity

• Your password

• Your email address

• The words you see in the image

• Accept the conditions to save and continue

Fill in these fields

• Username• Password• Email address• Image words• Accept conditions

Go to Settings to enter:

• Name • Username• Email• Time zone (drop down list)• Web site (if you have one) • Bio• Language preference• Then save the settings

Fill in these fields

Update your one line bio

Your bio

Make sure you write something meaningful in your Bio so other can learn something about you. Bios are searchable.

Go back to the Home Page

Home page: Update your status and view tweets from people you follow

Update your status in 140 characters

Update your status on your Home page

Search for people to follow

The search tab is a the bottom of the home page

Search: enter key words of your interests to find other people

Decide who you want to follow

Enter keywords of topics you want to follow

This will return tweets by people who have used these words. Look at their bio to see who they are and who their followers are.

Click the follow sign to follow someone

Follow is changed to following

You can see who you are following here

On the Home pageClick to see who you are following

Read your tweets

Profile page: Your tweets

You can see the tweets you have made here.

Reply to other people’s

tweets

The @ symbol sends a reply

This symbol before someones name sends a reply that Goes to their ‘reply’ tab. E.g.

@starpath

Click the reply symbol

This will place the ‘@’ symbol in the status update box before their name.Then type your reply

Reply to someone’s tweet by clicking the reply symbol

@name is inserted

This is where you can see replies to your tweets

Favourites

Save interesting tweets to read and reply to later

‘Favourite’ a tweetby clicking the star

This saves it into the ‘Favourites’ tab to go back and read when there is more time.

Read the tweets you have saved (favourites)

Your favourites here

Direct Messages

These are private messages between you and one other person

Send or read direct messages

Private messages are not for public viewing. An email is sent and the message is saved in the ‘Direct Messages’ tab.

You can see Sent and Received Direct Messages here:

Send a Direct Message

Access the drop down list of the people you are following.

Direct Message drop down list

Send direct messages from:

• The ‘message’ link on the profile page

• The reply icon from your direct messages

• The drop down box on the direct message inbox page

• The status update box using:

d + username + message