By Kristin Finney
Greene Publishing, Inc.
It seems as though every time the television is on, someone is talking about “twitter” or “tweeting.” For those who have ever thought, “What in the world are they talking about?” You’re not alone. Twitter is a new craze that is sweeping across the younger generations, and steadily increasing its presence in pop-culture. It seems as though everyone has a Twitter: the president, congressmen and women, celebrities and every day Joes.
Twitter is a way of sharing, with all of your followers (people who follow you on Twitter), anything that you want to. Whether it is a rant about something going on in the news or simply what you are doing at the moment, everything goes on Twitter.
Jana Kemp, an avid tweeter, had this to say about Twitter, “Twitter is about personality. You aren’t followed because of your profile picture. You’re followed because they like what you have to say.”
Creating a Twitter is simple, all that you have to do is go to www.twitter.com and create an account. You will be asked to put in your username; this will be the name each of your tweets starts with (i.e. JaneDoe123). When you send a “tweet” your messages will all automatically begin with “JaneDoe123:” Messages can say anything, but they cannot be longer than 140 characters. A normal Twitter message will appear to your followers like this, “JaneDoe123: I am so bored.”
If you want to follow someone, simply search his or her name and click follow. By following someone, you will see all of his or her “tweets” on your “feed.” Your “feed’ is what comes up on your homepage at Twitter. It shows all of your messages and messages from people that you follow.
The next thing to learn about Twitter is “trending topics.” These are displayed on the right-hand side of your computer screen. These are topics that large amounts of people are tweeting about. To begin a topic simply put an # in front of whatever you want the topic to be. If you want to begin the trending topic “hungry,” your message could look like “Wow, I am so #hungy.” Trending topics can also be multiple words, as long as there are no space in-between the words. For example, if you wanted to trend “I love Madison Florida,” your tweet could say, “What else can I say? #ILoveMadisonFlorida.”
Now that you are officially a “tweeter,” you can also send messages directly to other Twitter users. If you want to send something directly to someone, all that you have to do is put @(their Twitter name) somewhere in your message. For example, your message could say, “@JohnDoe456: What are you doing tonight?”
After creating a Twitter account, make sure to follow @Greenepublish for the most up-to-date news on Madison County.
