Twitter is a lot more than just posting your own updates; it also allows you to
follow tweets from other users so you can see what's going on and connect
with the people who are important to you. In this example, I'm using the Twitter app
for iPhone, so I'm going to select the More button to see a list of suggested users.
This process should be pretty similar if you're using Twitter on different device.
For example, in a desktop web browser looks for the Who to Follow box, then select View all.
A list of suggested accounts to follow will appear, and if you see one you like just select
the Follow button.
if you change your mind, just tap the button again and select Unfollow
to unfollow that user.
When you start following someone, their tweets will appear in your timeline.
if you want to connect with
Twitter user more directly, you can mention them in a tweet.
This is also referred to as starting a conversation on Twitter.
Select the New Tweet button,
then type the at symbol (@),
followed by the user name you want to mention in this post.
Because you're using the username system to do this this is also called tweeting at somebody.
When you tweet at someone like this, they'll receive a notification.
They can then reply directly to you by choosing the reply button
and then posting their message. You'll see that it pulled in the username part
automatically here since this is already part of a conversation we started.
Conversations can often span multiple tweets, and, as a result, when you use
Twitter like this,
your tweets won't appear in your timeline by default.
That's so your followers don't really have to look at this if they're not interested.
But if posting something you want your followers to see,
there's an easy option.
Just put a period at the very beginning of your tweet; that will cause it to
appear in your public timeline so anyone can see it.
OK, here's a reply we can see that these tweets are connected because they're
part of the same conversation.
One other thing we want to point out is the direct messaging feature. You can
send a private message to anyone who follows you on Twitter and it's not
limited to 140 characters; that makes it a lot more email, so if you're meeting
people through Twitter, this is great way to introduce yourself and reach out with
just a little more information than you could have normally included with a tweet.
Just select the Messages icon to see your options, and from there you can select
any user you want and start sending the message.
So, how will you connect on Twitter?
Now that you've seen all the options, you can think about the more carefully and
choose the ones that work for you.