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Twitter can be described as a "micro-blogging" social networking site.

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So what do the terms "micro-blogging" and "social networking" actually mean?

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Social networking means talking to people over the internet rather than face to face or over the phone.

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Critics often think social networking is simply others taking pictures of their breakfast and sending these out in to the world.

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Yet it can also be used to find interesting people,

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have discussions with people you might otherwise never normally meet,

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enhance offline relationships, or even to promote your business.

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"Micro-blogging" comes from the older concept of a blog, short for "web log",

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where you can write your own articles or diary and publish them online.

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Twitter is different because you have to say everything in 140 characters at a time.

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This allows for two or three short sentences at most!

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'Twitter' has been around for 6 years now and as of 2012 has over 10 million active users in the UK alone.

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It is a tool which can be used on the move – many smart phones have programmes which

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allow you to tweet even if you aren’t at a desktop computer.

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Twitter allows for extremely quick communication, and it allows for very rapid spread of information,

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or discussions to take place on the move from anywhere. It is having large scale changes on the world.

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People ‘live tweet’ at events, sharing the discussions which are taking place,

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with an audience who are not present,

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often directly quoting speakers, or summarising arguments made.

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Journalism is changing, with newspapers and Hansard citing tweets from celebrities or notable figures as quotes,

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and many journalists finding stories from Twitter.

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And even the process of watching the television is changing. As a programme is being broadcast,

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those watching often tweet comments and engage in discussions with their followers.

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Those watching often tweet comments or engage in discussions with their followers.

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Increasingly, institutions like the BBC are actively encouraging participation in this way.

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For example, BBC Question Time has an authorised account called ‘BBCQT Extra Guest'

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which tweets comment and thoughts during broadcasts, stimulating online debate.

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Programmes such as BBC Free Speech, aimed at a younger audience,

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go further and incorporate social media users directly into live broadcasts,

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as well as Twitter analytics.

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They also choose their subject matter by monitoring popular topics and trends of their core audience,

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making the experience a lot more interactive and relevant to those taking part.

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So, what actually happens when you use Twitter? You don't talk to everyone at once,

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and nor do you see everything all users are saying.

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If you want to see what someone has written, you have to find them.

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You can passively monitor discussions as a non-twitter user, through any normal search engine.

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However, if you want to actively use twitter, and engage yourself, you will need an account.

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The first thing you will need to do is go to the website – www.twitter.com

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You’ll see a box with the label “New to Twitter”. Enter your details and click “sign up”.

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An important thing to consider is a suitable username: this is how you will be referred to on twitter.

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It should be memorable, and consistent with any other corporate branding.

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Due to character limits of tweets, shorter user names are better.

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You will be prompted to create a short bio and add a web link,

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both of which you can edit later.

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You will also be asked to upload a user icon. People will associate this with you,

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and the image will be displayed next to your tweets,

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so again make it count and tie it into any corporate branding you may have.

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You now have an account!

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Twitter will prompt you to ‘follow’ famous and popular accounts in various fields.

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This means that their tweets will show up in your Twitter feed.

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Don’t feel bad about the choices you make right now about who to follow.

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You can follow or unfollow people at any time.

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You can use the search function to find accounts for people who you are interested in following.

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You can also search specific areas of interest, and receive suggestions of people to follow,

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although the list returned won’t be comprehensive.

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The list of people you are following will likely build up over time.

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One of the best things about Twitter is finding new people with multiple shared

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interests that you would not normally come across.

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There are a lot of celebrities on Twitter,

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and these accounts tend to have a large number of followers.

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Follow them if you want, but unless you are a high profile user yourself,

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you are unlikely to have the same level of engagement as you might with someone with fewer followers.

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If the account is to be a professional one,

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you will need to make a business decision about who to follow.

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Will it be all those who follow you, just those who seem to be a likely customer base

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or indeed just a few select people?

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Using lists can help you manage your feed;

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If you’re following a large number of people then your feed may become “filled up”

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and you may miss out on tweets you are interested in.

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Organising people by subject area, location, or interests

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can help to keep you updated and informed, without becoming overwhelmed.

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Once you’ve set up your account, you can use Twitter in a passive fashion,

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simply watching your feed, and reading what people are tweeting.

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However, one of the benefits of using Twitter is the ability to engage with a large number of people.

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It can be useful to take time to see how others use twitter first before tweeting yourself.

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There are four main ways to use Twitter: you can

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•send a tweet from your account,

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•direct a reply to someone else’s account (either in a reply to one of their tweets or simply ‘to’, them)

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•you can do what is termed as a “Retweet”

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•and you can use the private messaging function.

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So, let’s explain what these terms mean:

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To send a tweet, enter your text into the box on the left hand side of the screen,

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and then hit the Send button.

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This text needs to be 140 characters or fewer, so you may need to rephrase what you initially intended to say.

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It is quite a skill to be able to get everything you want to say into such a short amount of space!

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Ampersands are your friend, as are dashes and contractions.

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It is best to be concise, but if you must, you can run on to multiple tweets.

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When doing so, it is best to label this clearly so as not to be taken out of context.

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You can link to websites in your tweets – although web addresses can be long.

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In order to reduce the number of characters an address uses,

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you can use a link shortener like bit.ly or Tiny URL.

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Twitter does have an automatic one, but it can be temperamental.

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You can also add photographs to tweets.

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This is a good way to share experiences and generate interest.

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On another note, blogs can be set up to auto-publish links to Twitter,

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which is a good way to make sure people will see all the communication you have.

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An important aspect of Twitter is its hashtags. They work a little like a tagging system,

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helping to sort posts on the same topic into the same space.

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Clicking on these will bring up other users’ tweets on the subject.

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This is also a good way of seeing instant reactions to events,

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as well as gauging popular opinion on a particular topic.

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Whilst there are some hashtags which are formal and established,

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anyone can create a new one.

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However, it is advisable to check that these hashtags aren’t being used for other purposes,

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or do not have an unintended meaning.

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The second way of using twitter is to interact with people. To reply to someone,

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type the ‘@’ button and then the [username] of that person/ Alternatively,

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Alternatively, click reply under a specific tweet.

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This is useful as it creates a discussion thread, making it easier to follow a conversation.

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Consider it like a text message, albeit a public one,

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although you don’t need to be following someone in order to reply to them.

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Usernames are included in the 140 characters of a tweet,

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so this is also why it is important to have a short username.

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When you have responded, people will receive an alert. You can see your replies in your connect tab.

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Retweets are like forwarding an email: if you find something interesting in your feed

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written by someone else, you can ‘retweet’ it.

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This republishes it in your timeline where your followers will be able to see it.

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It will still be attributed to the original poster.

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Seeing retweets in your own feed is a good way of finding new accounts you may want to follow.

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It’s important to remember that twitter is a public communication tool.

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Anyone who follows you or searches for your account can see any of your tweets you have made.

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However, only those who follow you will see your tweets in their twitterfeed,

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and if you start a tweet with an @ sign and a username,

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the only people who will see this conversation in their feed will be those who follow both of you.

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If you want to tweet at someone and be seen to be doing so by all your followers,

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the standard convention is to put a full stop before the @ sign.

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Twitter also has a private messaging function, called ‘Direct messages’.

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These can only be sent to people who follow you.

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To see these messages you have received, go to your inbox in the top right corner.

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You can delete tweets. We recommend not to do it too often although it can be useful for fixing spelling mistakes.

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Please remember that anyone viewing your feed can also “screen capture” tweets you can still be quoted,

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even if you deleted the tweets.

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When starting out, you need to decide several things about the ‘voice’ of your account.

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Will it be a corporate or a personal voice?

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If there is a specific need to have a particular impartiality, say as the BBC or news outlet,

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then perhaps it will be important to have separate accounts for the broadcasts and for interactions.

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If working from a corporate account, check the social media guidelines of the organisation:

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there might be particular rules.

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Take into account what you will be doing and saying,

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and how you will interact, remembering twitter is a public communication tool.

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This goes without saying, but keep your tweets legal – pay particular attention to data protection and contempt of court laws.

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It is also important to remember that tweeting is considered publication,

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and so is subject to libel laws.

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Although it is easy to think of twitter as a table of friends in the pub,

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it’s a pub that the rest of the world is in as well.

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One of the most exciting aspects of Twitter is its ability for a quick fire response with your user base.

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Some responses can happen immediately as your tweets show up on other peoples’ feeds,

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and news can travel very quickly.

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This is good, because you can hear feedback much faster than older communication routes.

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Because of the ease of response, you will need to consider which tweets you will be replying to,

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and how; particularly if the account is a mouthpiece for a larger organisation.

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Twitter is essentially a large, intricate mass of word of mouth.

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You need to discover a sense of who is trustworthy and a credible source of information,

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but this will become clear the more familiar you become with your network.

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This guide has focused on showing you how to use Twitter on its website, but you may prefer another client,

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like Seismic or Tweetdeck which work slightly differently

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Similarly smart phones have official clients that work quite well.

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Whilst this guide has covered the basics, there is a lot more to consider,

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which we will explore in future guides.

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Safe Tweeting.