Yes…we still hear the same question from our clients, friends, family, and colleagues – “What is Twitter and what does it mean to tweet, retweet, yada, yada?” Well, we have some answers for you! According to Wikepedia, Twitter is a social networking and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read messages known as tweets. Along with Twitter comes new lingo that one might not be familiar with, so here’s the 411 on ‘Twerminology’ and its meaning:
What is a Tweet?
A tweet is a post or status update on Twitter. Because Twitter only allows messages of 140 characters or less, “tweet” is as much a play on the size of the message as it is on the audible similarity to Twitter.
What is a Retweet?
A “retweet” is a reply to a tweet that includes the original message or a tweet that includes a link to a news article or blog post that you find particularly interesting. Like hashtags, retweets are a recent community-driven phenomenon on Twitter with the aim of making the service better and allowing people to follow discussions easier.
What is a Hashtag and how do I use it?
A “hashtag” is a word or acronym used to describe a tweet in order for people to easily follow the conversation. Hashtags began as a community effort to tag individual tweets. Once their popularity took off, Twitter began supporting hashtags by automatically linking them into the search engine. Tagging your message on Twitter is easy. Simply add a hash (#) in front of the word, phrase or acronym that best describes your message. Due to the limited number of characters allowed in a tweet, the best hashtags are usually a single word or a few letters.
For more Twerminology, go to our source and visit About.com’s Twitter Glossary.
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