Twitter Terms Tweeps are the people who follow you. Tweet - when you post something to Twitter, this is formally called an update, but is better known as a tweet. What should you tweet about? “What am I thinking?” “What do I want to know?” Tweet links to new posts on your blog When you have something funny or insightful to say, tweet. Don’t tweet when you really don’t have anything to say. Don’t be too serious in your tweets. 

Twitter Terms @ is how you identify a tweep you are addressing or tweeting about. Put @ in front of the user name - @amstechteacher - and people will know you are addressing or writing about that person. In addition, Twitter will automatically turn the username into a hyperlink to his or her profile.

Twitter Terms Reply means to respond to a particular tweet. Retweet means to pass along something you read from one of your tweeps. You start a retweet with “RT @tweep’sname.”  Links are a great thing to retweet. #Hashtags are a tag to help group tweets about a particular event or topic.  #japan #earthquake

Twitter Terms Direct message or DM is a tweet sent directly to another tweet. This should not appear in either person’s public Twitter stream.  To reply by DM, type “d username” (with no @ symbol): “d amstechteacher”

Twitter Terms Fail whale is the graphic you see (featuring a whale) when Twitter is over capacity. Favorite. If you really like a particular tweet, you can designate it as a favorite by clicking on the star at the right, which will become visible when your cursor is over the tweet. You can see all your favorites through a link on the right of your home page.

Twitter Tasks: Tweet for yourself Follow me @amstechteacher Do you need privacy settings on your account? Reply to a tweet of one of your tweeps RT @tweep’sname #hashtags…….like #japan #earthquake DM to one of your tweeps Make a favorite tweet