Who to Follow on Twitter and How?

If you haven't visited Twitter yet, don't be embarrassed, we have our back to you

You've resisted until now, but finally decided that you need to stay active on Twitter. You have created an account using the internet or through the iOS or Android apps. What are you doing with it?

You can do a lot of things. You can keep up with the news, sell yourself or your product, promote a political cause, learn about different topics, communicate with hobbies, and meet people in online communities.

They all depend on the topics and people you follow. You probably want to find interesting people, read what they have to say (in text, images, and videos), respond when you have something to say, and share your interesting content. Whatever you want to do on Twitter, conversations and content are the foundation.

Twitter is best perceived as a conversation. The first thing you do when talking to strangers is introduce yourself. Your profile does it for you on Twitter. Put an interesting photo for your profile picture and fill out your bio.

To set up your online profile:

Click on your profile icon in the lower-left corner. If you haven't added a profile picture yet, you'll probably have your initials on it. This will take you to your profile page.

Click the "Edit Profile" button to the right of your photo

To set up your profile in the mobile app:

Click on the current profile picture in the upper-left corner (again, if you haven't added a photo, it will probably have your initials)

Select " Profile”

Click the "Edit Profile" button in the upper-right corner

 VIEWING THE GRID

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From there, you can upload a photo of yourself from your photo gallery, enter your name and biography, fill in the location field, provide a website URL, and / or enter your date of birth. Most of these fields are optional; in particular, if you don't want to tell Twitter your date of birth, it's not mandatory.

Size matters here: Your Twitter profile picture must be square, at least 400 x 400 pixels. Selfies your phone will do well. The banner, which is a large rectangular image at the top of the profile page, is larger by about 1500 x 500 pixels. A biography can contain up to 160 characters.

Have fun. Fill out whatever you want for your name and bio-within the limits of non-offensive behavior and the law - and change them regularly if you want. On Facebook, you must use your real name, but on Twitter, you can use an alias to protect your privacy. It's not a perfect defense-people can hunt him down if he's determined and has the resources - but he's good enough for everyday purposes.

Now that your profile is set up, the next step is to find people to follow and conversations to join. When you signed up, Twitter asked you about your interests and invited people to follow. It was probably all celebrities and politicians, who are, of course, very active on Twitter.

In my opinion, this is not the best way to find people to follow. Celebrities and politicians use Twitter as a streaming platform; they don't tend to engage in conversations other than each other (there are naturally exceptions). For me, at least, the best way to find good people to follow is to search for them yourself.

When you sign up for your Twitter account, the service asks you for access to your phone's contacts. Depending on how you feel about privacy and the big internet companies, you may have given you permission. If you did, Twitter suggests people you already know who are already on Twitter, and you can easily follow them. Let your friends who have already been to the service know that you are there.

Another good way to find people to follow is to simply ask. Ask your friends, family, and colleagues if they are already on Twitter, and if they are, ask for their Twitter name and follow them. Google your name, followed by the word " twitter. or you can search in Twitter itself:

On the web, put your friend's name in the search box in the upper-right corner of the page

In the mobile app, tap the search icon (magnifying glass) at the bottom of the app's home screen and enter the name of the person you want to search for

Your favorite media outlets, magazines, and bloggers probably have Twitter accounts. Following them is another good way to keep up with the news.

Another way to find content on Twitter is through the following topics. On the right side of the web app, you will see a list of topics and titles; for the mobile app, click the Search button in the mobile app to view the list. These are trending topics that are a good way to find popular conversations on Twitter.

One popular way to discover topics is to search for hashtags (as in #hashtags). Hashtags mark topics of conversation and allow people who don't follow each other to find and participate in conversations. Sometimes the hashtags relate to serious topics, such as #COVID19 or #idleg for tweets related to the Idaho legislature. Other times, they're playful: #NationalNappingDay, #CartoonsThatShouldReturn, or #birdtwitter. If you find a hashtag that interests you, click on it to view the entire conversation.

Maybe you're ok just reading through Twitter instead of participating. A lot of people use Twitter this way, and that's fine. But Twitter is better if you join the conversation.

You can start by responding to tweets that other people send.

On the web, respond by clicking the voice bubble icon in the lower-left corner of the tweet

On your mobile device, just tap on the tweet you want to reply to. The tweet slides to occupy the top of the screen. Under the original tweet, you'll see responses that have already been posted, and a place at the bottom to leave your own response.

In both the web and mobile versions, the small circle in the lower-right corner will have a blue outline that will advance as you type; if you pass a maximum of 280 characters, the circle will turn red (as will your additional characters).

 

To direct a tweet to someone else when you're not directly replying to one of their tweets, include their @username (like @mitchwagner) anywhere in your tweet.

To post an original tweet online, just start writing in " What's Going On?field at the top. Use the icons at the bottom of this field to add a photo, GIF, survey, or emoji. On your mobile device, tap the button in the lower-right corner, which looks like a pen with a plus sign, and there is one on it.

If you're viewing the maximum character when composing a tweet, tap the Plus button at the bottom of the screen to continue your thinking in a subsequent tweet, a series of which is called a stream.

Twitter is pretty free and easy about what you can post. Twitter's rules are short and common sense. They boil down to: don't be an idiot. Adult content is allowed, but it must be consistent.

If you have a problem with one tweet, tap the offending tweet to open it on a new screen, then tap the down arrow in the upper-right corner. You can unsubscribe from the intruder, silence them, mute the conversation, block them, or inform them.

We all know that Twitter has had serious problems with abusive users in recent years. The company has implemented measures to try to improve issues, such as more aggressive removal of offensive tweets and limiting the number of people who can follow specific tweets. You can find more information on Twitter on how to deal with online abuse on this page, including instructions for law enforcement officers on how to deal with cases of online abuse.

In fact, mute is a useful feature - and not just for abusive people. Let's say someone goes over and over again about a sports game that they're not interested in, or talks about the end of a TV series that isn't finished yet. You can turn them off a bit and then come back when they are moved. They'll never know if you don't tell them.