Twitter Glossary - 15 Common Terms

Tweet: A post made on Twitter by a user.  All known as a micro-blog post confined to 140 characters or less.

ReTweet or RT: Reposting something that has already been posted on the Twitter stream. RT usually precedes the original poster to give credit.  Great way to share information, connect with new followers and be a utility for your current followers.

DM: This is a Direct Message sent to a twitter user. One has to follow you in order to DM them. DMs don’t appear in the public twitter stream but go directly to the receiver’s inbox.

Via: This can sometimes be used in place of RT. A great way to source where you have gotten the information from.

Follow: If someone’s tweets appear in your stream then you are following them, and vise versa.

Follower: Someone who see your tweets appear in their timeline.

Unfollow: This is when someone does not want see your tweets anymore.  PS: I have found that "followers" are much more finicky on Twitter than on Facebook. It is common for your Twitter followers number to fluctuate much more than your Facebook "likes".

@ Reply: The @ symbol is used to reply to a twitter user. It can also "tag" someone in your tweet in which they would get a notice and can continue the conversation.

# (Hashtag):A hash symbol is used to comment about a certain topic in a tweet so that people searching for it can easily find it. Example - if you search for #twitter, any tweet that has that in it, would show up in your search.

Twitterer/Tweeter: Someone who uses Twitter

Tweeple: People who use Twitter (plural if you will!)

Tweeps: Twitter friends that one is constantly in touch with. Think about ‘Peeps’

Twitterati: A-list Twitter users or Twitter élite. These usually have a big number of followers and are somewhat famous and influential in Twitter circles.

Twittosphere: The collective group of people who tweet.

Link: Including a URL in your tweet.  Can sometimes be a full link or you may need to use a URL shortener to fit it in.  I recommend goo.gl as you can link it to  a gmail or Google+ account and track your click throughs.  

Now get to it!

Kristen