Twitter

"I tweet, therefore my entire life has shrunk to 140 character chunks of instant event & predigested gnomic wisdom. & swearing."

-- @NeilHimself

About
Twitter was created and launched in 2006 by four entrepreneurs and investors affiliated with the podcasting company "Odeo" as a way to facilitate widespread, interconnected microblogging. The original idea for the name "Twitter" came from the word's definition: "a short burst of inconsequential information". The website grew steadily throughout 2006 and then exploded in popularity at the 2007 South by Southwest Interactive conference, more than tripling the number of tweets being sent by its users.

Since then, Twitter's rise has been meteoric. According to Twitter's official website :
 * 288 million users actively tweet
 * 500 million tweets are sent each day
 * 80% of all users also use the site on mobile in some form

How to Use Twitter


To experience the full range of benefits Twitter has to offer, users must first create a free account. During account creation, the user selects a username (such as @jimmy_wales or @cnn) and can upload a profile picture and header photo, as well as fill in basic information such as full name, location, and a short biography. There are four main components involved in using Twitter:

Tweets
The main source of information on Twitter are tweets. Tweets are limited to 140 characters of information (characters include numbers, letters, spaces, and special characters like & or @) and can be sent instantaneously by a user. A Twitter feed and a user's profile page will show all tweets in reverse chronological order - the newest tweets will always be at the top.

Profiles
To curate a Twitter feed, each user can choose to follow or not follow any user on the site (new accounts automatically start at zero, but are suggested a list of potential accounts to follow based on selected interests). All sorts of accounts exist: celebrities (@aplusk), news organizations (@nytimes), universities (@mizzou), as well as sports teams, blogs, and ordinary users. Some accounts are verified which means that they have been verified by Twitter as being the official account of a specific organization or celebrity. Users can also create lists to sort the accounts they follow into subgroups.

Twitter Notifications
The primary method of communicating with other accounts on Twitter, the @ reply, is to send a tweet with @ followed by their username. For instance, if I wanted to tweet the President, I would need to include @BarackObama as part of my 140 character allotment.

Retweets are a way to have another user's tweet appear on your own profile, but with the original user's picture and name. It is used to share popular tweets, and often to implicitly affirm something without plagiarizing it or having to manually cite the source. Manual retweets also exist - this is where, instead of clicking the retweet button, a user simply writes "RT @original_user Content of the tweet." Neither style is necessarily preferred, though the regular retweet button is often easier. Favorites are a method of showing appreciation for a tweet or bookmarking it for later. To favorite a tweet, one needs simply to click the star below the text of the tweet.

Direct Messages can be sent between any two users who follow each other. They are private and act like email, but with the standard character limit.

Any @ reply, favorite, or retweet directed at a user will show up in their "Notifications" tab.

Hashtags
Another popular feature on Twitter is hashtags. Any word or phrase (without spaces) can be placed alongside the # symbol within a tweet to create the hashtag. For instance, student affairs professionals may have interest in hashtags such as #sachat and #satech. On the Twitter website, hashtags can be clicked to show all tweets tagged with that specific hashtag. In this way, hashtags are great ways to keep track of what is happening with certain events, or to connect with a large body of users with similar interests (such as the aforementioned popular student affairs hashtags).

On the left side of the website users can see trends, which are the most popular hashtags for a given location over a given period of time. Within the website, users can select geographical boundaries ranging from local cities (e.g. Boston or New York) to Global Trends.

HootSuite
Created in 2008, HootSuite is a multi-platform tool used to curate content and assist in brand management. Along with Twitter, users can link their Facebook, Google+, Wordpress, and other accounts to a central hub, from which one can keep real-time tabs on hashtags or other feeds.

HootSuite also allows users to perform analytics on their platforms, as well as schedule social media posts ahead of time. There are two versions: the free version, which is accessible by anyone and is limited with regards to analytics and delegation tools, and the Pro version ($9.99/month) which allows for more flexibility and increased access to tools. It has a browser version, as well as an iOS and Android app.

TweetDeck
TweetDeck is similar to HootSuite, but is an official component of Twitter. This service allows users to monitor multiple Twitter feeds (e.g. notifications, hashtags, or direct messages) in real-time, similar to Hootsuite. It also allows users to schedule tweets in advance and to set alerts on keywords. Along with the browser version, TweetDeck offers desktop programs for both Windows and Mac.

Student Affairs Twitter Hashtags
Here are some of the popular Twitter hashtags used by student affairs professionals:
 * #AcAdv (academic advising)
 * #edchat (K-12 education)
 * #edtech (general education technology)
 * #EMchat (enrollment management)
 * #FAchat (financial aid)
 * #SAchat (general discussion, weekly chats)
 * #SAgrad (graduate students, primarily master's)
 * #SApro (general discussion)
 * #SAtech (technology)
 * #wisa (women in student affairs)