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

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

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

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

Yet it can also be used to find interesting people,

have discussions with people you might otherwise never normally meet,

enhance offline relationships, or even to promote your business.

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

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

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

This allows for two or three short sentences at most!

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

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

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

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

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

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

with an audience who are not present,

often directly quoting speakers, or summarising arguments made.

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

and many journalists finding stories from Twitter.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

as well as Twitter analytics.

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

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

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

and nor do you see everything all users are saying.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

both of which you can edit later.

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

and the image will be displayed next to your tweets,

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

You now have an account!

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

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

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

You can follow or unfollow people at any time.

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

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

although the list returned won’t be comprehensive.

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

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

interests that you would not normally come across.

There are a lot of celebrities on Twitter,

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

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

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

If the account is to be a professional one,

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

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

or indeed just a few select people?

Using lists can help you manage your feed;

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

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

Organising people by subject area, location, or interests

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

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

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

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

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

There are four main ways to use Twitter: you can

•send a tweet from your account,

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

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

•and you can use the private messaging function.

So, let’s explain what these terms mean:

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

and then hit the Send button.

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

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

Ampersands are your friend, as are dashes and contractions.

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

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

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

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

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

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

You can also add photographs to tweets.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

as well as gauging popular opinion on a particular topic.

Whilst there are some hashtags which are formal and established,

anyone can create a new one.

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

or do not have an unintended meaning.

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

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

Alternatively, click reply under a specific tweet.

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

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

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

Usernames are included in the 140 characters of a tweet,

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

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

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

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

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

It will still be attributed to the original poster.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

These can only be sent to people who follow you.

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

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

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

even if you deleted the tweets.

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

Will it be a corporate or a personal voice?

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

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

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

there might be particular rules.

Take into account what you will be doing and saying,

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

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

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

and so is subject to libel laws.

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

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

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

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

and news can travel very quickly.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

like Seismic or Tweetdeck which work slightly differently

Similarly smart phones have official clients that work quite well.

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

which we will explore in future guides.

Safe Tweeting.