Twitter is a six year old social networking utility with 360 million users.  We have had a special request from a few parents to write a ‘How To’ guide for would-be Tweeters on our blog.  It seems Twitter can be a wee bit mystifying when you are new to it., however it is probably the easiest of the social networking sites to get to grips with.

We use Twitter as @BetterTuition to spread the word about our maths, English and science tuition centre in Urmston and Stretford.  We are experts in education and we like to share our knowledge with others.  We also network with local businesses and community groups.

To set up your Twitter account, go to https://twitter.com/ and choose a username and password.  It’s that simple: now you can follow, tweet, and retweet to your heart’s content.  If you follow @BetterTuition, we will follow you back and help you get started.

To ease you in, here is a mini-glossary of Twitter-related terms.

Follower:  Twitter is all about following and being followed.  When you follow a Twitter user, their tweets (see below) will appear in your newsfeed.  You can search for specific people (when you find them, just click on ‘follow’) or make use of Twitter’s Who to Follow suggestions.  People can also follow you to access your pearls of wisdom. 

Tweet (noun): 140 characters (letters, spaces or punctuation marks) with which to do whatever you please.  

Tweet (verb): to send a tweet.  You can tweet another Twitter user or use the facility more like a status update. 

Retweet (noun/ verb): if you like a tweet and want to give it a wider audience, you can circulate it to all your follwers by clicking the retweet button. 

If you like statistics (who doesn’t), there is a great infographic here  that gives all kinds of facts about social networkers (e.g.  the average tweeter is 39 years old). 

We love the simplicity of Twitter and find it a great way to access and share up to date information about education. 

Tomorrow we will be recommending some great Tweeters: will you be among them?