Twitter. What you need to know & Why its important

Twitter. What you need to know & Why its important

Overview/Purpose/Function

Twitter is the "SMS of the Internet," or more officially, an online social networking site that allows users to microblog via "tweets." A tweet is a text messages limited to 140 characters or less. Twitter is a platform for social connection but also for sharing or discovering a wealth of information. Like a tailored newspaper, your home page will contain "headlines" from people and places you decide to follow--so whoever and whatever excites you can offer fresh flow on the daily. 

Twitter has gained rapid worldwide popularity, with 500 million registered users in 2012, who posted 340 million tweets per day, and handled 1.6 billion search queries per day. Twitter is now one of the ten most visited websites. According to Wikipedia, and as of September 2013, the company's data showed that 200 million users send over 400 million tweets daily, with nearly 60 percent of tweets sent from mobile devices.

Key Features, Benefits

HOME PAGE This is where you’ll land whenever you sign in to Twitter. On the right is a stream of Tweets posted by all the people you “follow” on Twitter. The more people you follow, the more interesting this page will be.
@CONNECT PAGE Interactions timeline shows you how others have been interacting with you on Twitter. We’ll tell you when someone marks your Tweet as a favorite, mentions your username, follows you, or retweets your content. 
#DISCOVER PAGE displays the top Trends and Tweets on Twitter. Tweets shown here are personalized for you based on Your connections Your location and language settings Recent spikes in a topic’s popularity
Find and follow people whose Tweets interest you from your Discover tab. Browse tailored recommendations on the who to follow page, find friends using your address book, orbrowse categories of popular accounts. 
MENTIONS When another user includes your username preceded by the @ symbol in a Tweet, we call it a “mention.” Your Mentions tab collects Tweets that mention you by your username so you can keep track of conversations others are having with you. Click a Tweet to see the conversation.  
To search for Tweets, people, hashtags, or topics, type your query into the search box in the top navigation bar. From the Connect tab, results default to people; from the Discover tab, results default to Tweets. Toggle between results at any time using the menu on the left. 
Accessing your profile from the Me tab in the top navigation bar will display a general overview of your account with your Tweets, photos, stats, and information about who you are. Edit your profile by simply clicking on the gear icon in the upper right corner of the screen and selecting Edit profile.
A direct message is a personal Tweet seen only by the sender and the recipient. To read yours, click on Direct messages from the envelope icon in your navigation bar. To send one, just specify the username of the account you want to communicate with (they must be following you).
TWEETS To post your own Tweet, click the compose Tweet button in the top right corner of your page. You can link to images, videos, or web URLs in your 140-character message, and add location if you want to show users where you are. 
HASHTAGS A hashtag is any word or phrase with the symbol # immediately in front of it. This symbol turns the word into a link that makes it easier to find and follow a conversation about that topic. 


How to Be Influential/Following 
According to "Statistic Brain,"  and as of May 2013, Twitter has 554,750,000 active registered users, with 135,00 new users signing up everyday, 190 million Twitter site visitors every  month, 58 million average tweets per day, and 2.1 billion search engine queries per day. Apparently, 43% of Twitter users use their phone to tweet, while another 40 % don't tweet but watch other people tweet. Not bad, considering it takes only 5 days to make 1 billion tweets, which may be 9,100 per second. I'd say Twitter offers a solid market audience.