Twitter 101

The other night my dad and I were watching the College World Series on TV…Geaux Tigers! Anyway, the sports announcers kept saying things like "Les Miles is twittering", or "check out so-and-so on twitter". My dad turned to me and said, "what the heck is twitter?"

"Well," I said, "I am not really sure, but I know it is kinda like texting but not really."

I look over to see a blank stare on my dad's face. Apparently I was not getting through to him.

"um, it is kinda like Facebook but in real time."

Silence. Still no breakthrough.

So, I decided to find out exactly what Twitter really is, and this is what I discovered. I call this Twitter 101.

Twitter is an application that has taken off largely because of its simplicity. Basically, it asks the question, "What are you doing?" and then you have 140 characters (letters) to answer that question. It involves sending and receiving quick, frequent messages.

Tweets (yes, like the bird sound) are posts displayed on the author's profile page and delivered to other users - known as followers - who have subscribed to them. You can choose to "follow" people…which means you will be notified when they post a new update.

For example, if I wanted to know what Paula Dean was doing right now, I could follow her tweets and everytime she said something via twitter, I would be notified via computer, email, or a text from my phone. She might say something like, "just tried out a new recipe using peanut butter and paprika!" (I totally just made that up, you can tell I don't cook too often.)

Twitter can be useful for both personal and business use. It's a great way to keep in touch with your friends and quickly broadcast information about where you are and what you're up to. For example, "I'm about to go see a movie, anyone wanna join me?"

For your business, Twitter can be used to update clients, share corporate news, introduce a new product or even advertise an upcoming sale.

Twitter allows you to follow celebrities, authors, singers, actors, speakers, politicians, athletes or just your friends and family.

Still not sure what the hype is all about? Honestly, I am not either, but I do think it is important to stay in the know! So to wrap up this stimulating lesson, I will leave you with a few interesting facts about Twitter.

In Febuary 2009, Twitter was ranked the 3rd most used social network after Facebook and Blogger.

Just a few celebrities you can follow on Twitter include…Brittany Spears, Ashton Kutcher, Lance Armstrong, Shaq, Michael Phelps and Oprah Winfrey.

Men comprise 45% of Twitter users, while women represent 55%.

Well there you have it...everything I know about Twitter. Alright...class dismissed!