Twitter: 24 Keywords You Need To Know

Social Media is a fantastic marketing tool but, as with many areas of marketing and business in general, realistically it’s only worth investing the time if you’re going to use it properly. To really make the most of Twitter, you will need to understand the keywords and phrases associated with the platform.

Even if it takes you a while to reach the audiences you’d like to, at least this way you’ll be able to talk the talk. Here are 24 keywords to start you off.

Analytics

Twitter Analytics, as with other Social Media platform analytics, will inform you of the data surrounding of your tweets and account in general. The primary metrics are the number of tweets, tweet impressions, profile visits, mentions and followers.

Twitter will also show you your Tweet Highlights including top tweet, top follower and top mention.

Bookmarks

Bookmarks on Twitter provide the same functionality as they do elsewhere. Essentially, you’re saving something for later. You can add a tweet to your bookmarks by clicking on the share button (which looks like an up arrow coming out of a box). You may wish to bookmark a tweet containing information or an article that will be helpful to refer back to.

DM or PM

A ‘DM’ is a Direct Message, and a ‘PM’ is a Private Message. Some conversations are better had in private, especially if you’re exchange contact details or personal information with a customer. By asking them to DM or PM you, which means the same thing, they should know to move the conversation to the Message feature on Twitter.

Explore

The ‘Explore’ tab on Twitter collates categories of information such as ‘For You’, which are tweets and trending topics they believe will be most relevant to you, ‘Trending’, ‘News’, ‘Sports’, ‘Fun’, and ‘Entertainment’. If you’re using the platform and there’s nothing exciting happening on your timeline, then you can head over to the explore section for a broader mix of content.

Followers

Your Twitter ‘Followers’ are the other Twitter accounts that are choosing to follow you. They will see your tweets on their timeline and, if you’re lucky, like, retweet or reply to your posts.

Following

Here, you will see the accounts that you are following. By following other users, your timeline will be populated with their tweets. Follow users who are relevant to your business, industry and customers to stay in the know and join in crucial conversations.

Handle vs Username

Your Twitter Handle and Username are easy to confuse as they are often the same name. Just to make things even more confusing, Twitter refers to your handle as a username and your username as a display name. However, the term Twitter handle is more commonly used in Marketing.

Your Twitter Handle is the ‘@xxx’ and can be up to 15 characters. Your handle must be unique and cannot contain any symbols, dashes or spaces – underscores, numbers and letters are allowed. Your Twitter Username can be up to 50 characters long.

Hashtag

The hashtag was introduced as a feature on Twitter in August 2007 and has since been added to Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn. A Hashtag can be used to join conversations with others also using the hashtag and Twitter will group each tweet. Hashtags influence what’s ‘trending’.

Like

You can ‘like’ tweets by clicking on the love heart underneath the tweet. A ‘like’ on Twitter is the same as other Social Media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram or LinkedIn. Think of a ‘like’ as a nod of approval or agreement with the tweet, without opening up a full-on conversation with the tweeter.

Lists

You can create a ‘List’ of Twitter Accounts to make it super easy to stay up to date with just their latest tweets amongst everything else popping up on your timeline. You can add an image, name and description to your list and choose whether it’s private or not.

Mentions

If you’d like to mention or ‘tag’ someone, then you can type their ‘@’ handle and add them into the tweet. By mentioning someone in your tweet, they will receive a notification on their account. Mentions are a great way to incorporate or credit someone in your post.

Messages

As above, under DM and PM, there is a private messenger section of Twitter where you can have one to one conversations. You can start a new message with users who you are following or request to send a message to other users depending on their settings.

Moments

Twitter Moments allow users to merge multiple tweets into a slideshow style format. Moments were introduced to group trending topics and enable users to stay in the loop in one, accessible place. Moments are now a public feature and allow for a more engaging, dynamic way for users to share a story.

Notifications

The bell icon on your Twitter account will show you your notifications. These will be split between All and Mentions. ‘All’ show tweets that are recommended for you plus notifications of retweets and likes from your account. ‘Mentions’ split out where other users have mentioned you in their tweets.

Poll

If you’d like to ask your audience a question, then you can tweet a poll with a minimum of two, and up to four, choices to choose from. You can set your poll length, up to seven days, and once it’s complete analyse the answers.

Profile

Your Twitter Profile will include all of the information about yourself or your business. Here there is space for a bio, up to 160 characters, location, link, date of birth and the year you joined Twitter.

You can also update your profile picture and header image.

Profile Picture: 400×400 Pixels

Header Image: 1500×1500 Pixels

Replies

Before you hit ‘tweet’ on your post, you can click on the earth button and choose who can reply. The options are Everyone, People You Follow and Only People You Mention. Anyone mentioned can respond at any time.

Retweet

Retweeting someone else’s tweet will mean that it appears on your profile and in the newsfeed of your followers. A retweet is similar to a ‘Share’ on other Social platforms and is a sign of agreement of what the tweet is saying. By you, and others, retweeting something, you’ll increase the organic reach of the original tweeter. You can also retweet with a comment to add your views.

Schedule

One of the more recent features of Twitter is the ability to schedule a tweet from within the platform. Simply write your tweet and before you hit the ‘Tweet’ button, click on the calendar icon with a clock. You’ll then be able to choose the Month, Day, Year, Hour, Minute and Time Zone for when the tweet needs to be published.

Timeline

Your Twitter Timeline is the list of tweets that appear when you launch the app or open Twitter on your desktop. Your timeline is made up of tweets and retweets from accounts you follow plus paid-for promoted tweets.

Topics

The Topics feature on Twitter allows you to ‘follow’ topics, rather than accounts, and see tweets associated with them. Topics allow you to see only what’s relevant to you right at the top of your timeline.

Trending

As users’ tweet and include the same hashtag or tweet about one key topic, Twitter collates this information and lists ‘What’s Happening’. You’ll see trending topics on the right of your desktop screen or under the magnifying glass icon on the app.

Tweet

If you’ve made it this far without knowing what a Tweet is then, we hope we’ve not completely confused you! A Tweet is a post on Twitter and can be up to 280 characters long. If you want to include a link in your Tweet, they will take up 23 characters from your limit.

If you’re likely to go over your limit, then you can add a second tweet below the first one by pressing the + button.

Verified (or Blue Tick)

If you see a blue tick icon against a profile name, then this means the account is verified. Twitter will verify accounts that are of public interest, so you know who is genuine or not. The verification feature is a way of keeping the platform safer.

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