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What is Twitter?
If you have just arrived on social networks and want to get started on Twitter, we have prepared the post you need: What Twitter is and how it works.
Take a comfortable seat and find the answers to all the doubts that arise about this social network.
What is Twitter?
Twitter is a social network that was born in 2006. It allows you to communicate and interact with other users through public messages, known as tweets, and private, known as DMs or direct messages.
Twitter is a microblogging social network with free access except for the newest feature known as Twitter Blue, which appeared as a subscription service in 2022. You can use this network on your desktop, or mobile device, both iOS and Android.
Its main feature is that it has a marked character limit: It started with a maximum of 140 characters, which increased to 280 in 2017.
Despite being one of the most veteran social networks, its users remain faithful. While new generations tend to prefer others. You just have to see the failed attempts of Twitter to curtail more towards the younger generations, trying to adopt features of other social networks.
However, in 2022 Twitter reached 368 million active users, according to Statista sources.
After the demonstrations are made, we will take the first steps on Twitter.
How to get started on Twitter
The first thing you need to do on this social network is to create an account. You can enter without one, but you will have very limited access to all its features.
Basically, you can browse a couple of tweets on users’ profiles, but you will not be able to follow or see multimedia content, or of course interact with other accounts.
How to create a Twitter account
You can create a user account in just a few minutes, by following these steps:
- Go to the Twitter page and click Register.
- Enter the required data by the social network: full name, email, telephone and password. Choose how to register, whether with your email or with your mobile.
- Choose a username that will be the one you are recognized with on the social network.
- Complete your user profile and you’re ready!
Here’s a step-by-step tutorial to create your Twitter account.
When you have it, remember that it is important to optimize your Twitter profile so that users can find you easily.
At any time, you can delete your Twitter account, but keep in mind that you will lose all content you have shared.
First steps on Twitter
Once you have access to your account, it’s time to know what the home screen of your profile is like.
Here’s everything about your account:
- In the middle you have the cover photo, profile picture, your bio, the tweets you have published and those you have retweeted. In addition, you can move on to see the responses, media and likes you’ve received.
- On the left side, you can access the start of your timeline, the explore section, communities and notifications, where you will see all the interactions you have received, among other options.
- On the right side, you have the Twitter search engine, the multimedia content you have shared, recommended users to follow, and trends.
Now you know what Twitter is, how to create an account, and what the home screen looks like. It’s time to get down to work and see how the social network works.
How Twitter works
Twitter works through tweets, which are the posts of the social network.
As we have mentioned before, in the beginning there was a maximum of 140 characters, but now you have up to 280 to publish the content you want, including photos, videos or gifs, and mentions to other users.
If your head is going a little crazy right now, don’t worry. We are going to explain how to write a tweet and how to interact, in addition to other features on the platform.
How to compose a tweet
To compose a tweet you simply have to:
- Click the ‘Tweet’ button on the left side of the screen or, if you’re on the mobile version, the icon at the button right, with a pen.
- Now is your time to get creative and write the content of your tweet. Remember that you have up to 240 characters for it: emojis, hashtags and mentions are included in this. To mention a user, just type the @ symbol and the username that Twitter will show you.
- You can add different elements to your tweet, such as an image, video or gif. You can also add a survey, although it doesn’t go hand in hand with multimedia content.
- When you have it all, click Tweet and you’re done.
How to create a thread in Twitter
One of the classic contents of Twitter is the creation of threads. Having the limit of 280, many users respond to their own tweet following the thread of the first tweet, hence the name.
If you want to tell something that needs more than 240 characters, this option is great: Just click the reply button, a comic-bubble icon, and keep telling your story.
How to interact on Twitter
Twitter offers several possibilities to interact with other users. Get to it, because interacting with other accounts is essential to grow on Twitter and any social network for that matter.
- Follow: You can follow as many accounts as you want. Go to the user you are interested in and click on ‘Follow’. To unfollow them, go back to the profile and you will have the option to ‘unfollow’ in the same place.
- Reply to a tweet: You have the option to reply to any tweet as long as the profile is public or you have the option to reply to all users. Reply tweets have the same conditions as an initial one, 240 characters.
- Retweet: Retweet is to share a tweet to show it on your timeline for your followers to see. It can be a retweet without a message or with a message, known as a ‘quote tweet’, which allows you to add your own tweet to the original.
- Likes: This is the other option to interact, in which you can like the tweet. Twitter usually shows other users the likes, as if it were the retweet.
- Direct Messages: Here you can communicate privately with other users. Depending on whether they have a private account or access to private messages, you can send a message or not.
Twitter Features
In such a veteran social network, you have to renew or perish. And in this case, Twitter wanted to update its application with new features to encourage its users.
What are these extras besides tweets?
- Search on Twitter: This is one of the tools of the social network that allows you to search for old content both from your account and from other users.
- Twitter Communities: This feature is to create your own community on Twitter with which to share content privately.
- Saved: In this section you can save the tweets that you find interesting so you never lose them, unless the original user deletes them.
- Topics: An option to choose the content that interests you and that Twitter will use to show you on your profile.
- Twitter Lists: With lists, you can group the content that interests you most and sort it by topic.
- Twitter Circle: In this circle, you can create your small group of trusted followers to show them your future tweets before launching them to the public.
- Twitter Ads: With lists you can group the content that interests you most and sort it by topic.
- Twitter Analytics: If you want to see how your content is working on Twitter, you can measure all the information.
Other external tools
Now that you know everything about Twitter and how it works, did you know that there are external tools to manage your account?
With Metricool you can:
- Schedule your Twitter content using the best hours option to get the most out of your tweets.
- Measure Twitter analytics and have information about your metrics at the click of a button, generating PDF and PPT reports on your performance.Â
- Manage your account by monitoring hashtags, responding to direct messages and analyzing your competition.
Along with all these options, you can also manage all the social networks (Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, etc.) with which you work with, from one place: Metricool.
You now have everything you need to get started on this social network, you know what Twitter is and how it works.
Get to it as soon as possible and create your community. Leave any questions below and we will read your comments.