So you sign in and see: “I tweeted this RT from @aplusk and my followers freaked. I even got DMs and it was almost a TT! #lamepeopleirritateme”. Brain melting? Don’t worry, it’s not as strange as it looks.
Starting with RT. Quite awhile ago Tony Hawk posted “RT @someone It’s my birthday!” Of course people wished him a happy birthday. Little did they know, RT means ReTweet. This means that the person is resending someone else’s post to spread the word. ReTweeting is actually done often and is a quick way to get the word spread far and wide about anything or anyone. It’s like the old pyramid schemes, if one sells to ten and they each sell to ten and so on.
Next the @ signs. This is only a way to mark that you are using someone’s unique twitter name. @aplusk happens to be Ashton Kutcher. (A plus K get it?) So any time that you see an @ sign just realize it refers to someone. When you use the person’s unique twitter name via the @ that post also appears in a separate page on their profile that they can choose to look at often to see who is talking about them.
DM means Direct Message. This is a bit like an email sent via Twitter with a 140 character limit. You can only send these private messages to someone who is following you. This makes it easier by eliminating an inbox full of spam or otherwise unwanted messages.
The last thing the above message talks about is TT’s, Trending Topics. Along the side of your profile page (or in you menu if you are using a telephone ap) you will see a list of topics. These change frequently and generally refer to whatever is ‘hot’ in the news or entertainment industry. It’s a way to see what ‘everyone is talking about’ as it takes thousands of tweets to start a TT. A way to alert people that you are trying to start a TT is to use a hashtag which is represented by the pound sign ‘#’. Example: If @pink puts out a new album she might tweets something like “My new album just dropped!! Pick up #greatesthitssofar online or at your local store!” This shows that she would like the name of her album to ‘trend’ giving it optimum recognition.
Tags: Social Media, Twitter
