This short guide to the Twitter novice. It discusses what Twitter is, how it works, key terms to know, benefits of Twitter to a Business or professional, how to get started and some best practices.

1. TheWebMarketer
Twitter 101 Guide
What is Twitter?
Twitter is a real-time, social networking website that allows users to send and read messages – known
as tweets – of up to 140 characters. It is also referred to as “micro-blogging”.
Millions of people, organizations, and businesses use it to discover and share new information.
How Does Twitter Work?
Twitter lets you write and read messages of up to 140 characters, or the very length of this sentence,
including all punctuation and spaces.
The messages are public and viewable from the author’s profile page. Users are able to decide which
accounts they follow and receive messages from.
Users can respond to tweets in the following ways:
• Send the author a message back.
• Subscribe to receive future tweets from the author by ‘following’ them (if you are not already doing
so)
• Retweet the message (i.e., send the message in its entirety to your own ‘followers’)
• Expand the conversation by sending their own tweet about what the author has written
• A combination of the above.
Key Terms
• A tweet is a message posted on Twitter
• Following somebody means subscribing to someone’s tweets
• A direct message (or DM) is a private message on Twitter
• RT or retweet means reposting someone else’s tweet
• Trending topics are the most-discussed subjects on Twitter at any given moment
• Including @[username] in a tweet is a way of sending a public message to or about a Twitter user
• A hashtag (the # symbol followed by a subject) is included in tweets as a way of categorizing posts
by subject. They provide a useful searching tool for finding tweets on topics of interest.
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2. TheWebMarketer
Twitter 101 Guide
• Shortened URLs: to fit links into tweets, URLs are typically shortened using free services such as
bit.ly (http://bit.ly) that provide a shorter link which redirects to an existing website. The downside of
this is that you cannot tell where the link will take you. To get around this, use Twitter’s internal link-
expanding function or free services such as RealURL (http://real-url.org/index.php) to see what the
actual URL is and decide whether it is safe to view. Don’t just click on a shortened URL blindly
– you never know what’s on the other side.
Business Benefits of Twitter
A business can use Twitter to quickly share information, gather market intelligence and insights, and
build relationships with customer prospects and people who care about the company.
Often, there is already a conversation about a business happening on Twitter. It is better for a business
to participate in that conversation.
Getting Started
Sign Up
• Go to Twitter website: www.twitter.com
• Enter the required information in the sign up form
• Click the “Sign Up for Twitter” button
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3. TheWebMarketer
Twitter 101 Guide
Following Others
‘Following’ somebody means that you have subscribed to their tweets.
You can use the Twitter search function to find people you may be interested in following. You can enter
any keyword in the search field.
Assuming we wanted to connect with physical therapists, we would enter “physical therapist” and get the
following Search results page:
From this page,
• If you select “Tweets”, Twitter will give you a list of all tweets (posts) that contain “physical
therapist”
• If you select “People”, Twitter will give you a list of all Twitter profiles that contain “physical
therapist”
Once you have found someone you would like to follow, click on the ‘Follow’ button
associated to their profile.
It is important to note that on your profile page other Twitter users will be able to see which users you
follow and which users are following you. You should take this into account before following a user or
allowing another user to follow you.
Note: You do not need to follow someone to send them a tweet.
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4. TheWebMarketer
Twitter 101 Guide
Best Practices
Build your following, reputation, and customer's trust with these simple practices:
• Share. Share photos and info related to our business and industry. Even better, share info on
upcoming and events. Users come to Twitter to get and share the latest, so give it to them!
• Listen. Regularly monitor the comments about our company, brand, and products.
• Ask. Ask questions of your followers to glean valuable insights and show that you are listening.
• Respond. Respond to compliments and feedback in real time
• Reward. Tweet updates on interesting and time-sensitive items.
• Demonstrate wider leadership and know-how. Reference articles and links about the bigger
picture as it relates to our business.
• Champion your stakeholders. Retweet and reply publicly to great tweets posted by your
followers and customers.
• Establish the right voice. Twitter users tend to prefer a direct, genuine, and of course, a likable
tone from your business, but think about your voice as you Tweet. How do you want your
business to appear to the Twitter community?
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