Illustrated by Nick Palazzo
This month, I’m putting together a glossary of terms for Twitter.About.com, because Twitter is a beehive of jargon that scares people away before they ever really get into it.
Twitter has done a great job at turning some of the former jargon into site features (the retweet button, linked hashtags) but there’s still plenty to learn. Even I only just learned what a MT is. Apparently now when you shorten or edit a retweet, you’ve gotta mark it as a Modified Tweet (MT). That’s, of course, not patrolled by the Twitter police or anything, but another implied community rule.
The new Twitter glossary isn’t complete, but then again, is any glossary ever complete?
In any case, there are a ton of glossary terms in the post, so let’s get started!
- Micah Baldwin (@micah) started Follow Fridays back in 2009 using the hashtag #FollowFriday. On that note, nobody used to shorten it to #FF back in the day because at the time, #FF meant FriendFeed (.com).
- Twitter favorites used to be used as public bookmarks, not how they are used now as “likes.”
- In the past year, Twitter has made it really easy to Discover new people and trends without using Twitter Search.
- Direct messages are private; Tweets are public.
- Looking at your Connections will tell you how many apps are connecting to your Twitter account. You can deny access to Twitter apps using the Twitter API that you no longer want connected.
- The Twitter Connect tab has gotten so cool lately. You used to have a single feed of replies, now it’s like your Twitter inbox and alert center. No way to track unfollows via Twitter yet, but who wants to know that, anyway?
- Twitter makes it super easy for you to get followers with a simple form that creates Twitter buttons.
- Twitter’s version of a customer service call is when you submit bugs to @support.
- Your Twitter background is ridiculously customizable – all you need is Photoshop!
- You have 30 days to change your mind after deactivating your account – then it’s gone!
- Unlike the RT, a MT or HT used in your Tweet is completely optional. Technically, using RT in your Tweets is optional, too!
- Whenever you’re mentioned on Twitter, you’ll know about it!
Also this month, I put together some Twitter quotes that marketers can use in their feeds. We all know that quotes get shared frequently, so if you’re trying to fill up some space in your timeline, check them out.
Examples:
“Dance like the photo’s not being tagged, Love like you’ve never been unfriended, Tweet like nobody’s following .” – @PostSecret
“If Paul Revere had been a modern day citizen, he wouldn’t have ridden down Main Street. He would have tweeted.” – @AlecJRoss
“We are the generation of Social Media, Our biggest Revolution is a Tweet of 141 Characters.” –@sandrachami
“I’ve had to learn when not to tweet. Like, you learn how to keep your mouth shut? Learn to keep your tweet shut.” @thatdanstevens
“If you are tweeting how busy you are … you’re not busy.” – @KristinCav
“… don’t tell me I should only talk to people with a high influence score, or I’ll Klout you …” ― @JohnJGeddes
“I tweet, therefore my entire life has shrunk to 140 character chunks of instant event & predigested gnomic wisdom. & swearing.” @NeilGaiman
“Don’t ever tell people on Twitter that you’re tweeting while you’re driving … it’s worse than saying you’re cutting up kittens” @robgokee
If you’re not following me over on @About_Twitter, you most definitely should. Not only am I sharing all of these new articles, but I’m also spitting out Twitter news like a firehose.
And that’s just a little bit of news. I’ve been cooking up as many definitions as I can for the glossary, but will soon be adding a lot for how-tos and whatnots. Hope you guys have been enjoying so far!
