Are You Afraid of Tweeting? You Don’t Need to Be

A few years ago I wrote a blog post titled “Six tips for Twitter users with less than 25 followers.” As a relatively new Twitter user at that time, I figured that my learnings could come in handy for my subscribers and friends some of whom were reluctant to jump on the Twitter bandwagon.

Despite being active on LinkedIn and Facebook, many professionals are leery about the optics of being seen as a Twitter novice.

Essentially, they were afraid of tweeting.

The fact that Twitter connections can be one-way – the people who you follow do not have to have to follow you back – makes it more daunting. The primary intent of this follow-up post is to answer some of the more basic questions that I get asked about Twitter.

1. Why Twitter?

With 330 Million users, Twitter has become an important communication tool. You may have noticed that most articles you read or TV shows that you watch come with a Twitter symbol giving you the option to tweet about it. So if you want to engage – comment, counter, complain, etc. – with any kind of content, Twitter is a great choice.

All you need is a Twitter account. The applications range from breaking news to product promotions to political feuds to job hunting. It is also a great leveler. Technically, you can tweet to the CEO of a company and expect a reply. The response or lack thereof may depend on how he or she views your level of influence.

2. What do I tweet about?

The answer is simple. You can tweet about whatever interests you. You can rest assured that there are other users on Twitter with similar interests as you – be it food, sports, travel, technology, or politics.

During the early days, it is easier to tweet content – an article, image, or news item – that you come across in your day-to-day interactions. The best way to do this is to add it as a link to your tweet. To stay within the 140 (new limit 280) character limit of Twitter, a free URL shortening service like bitly can be used to trim the number of characters in your link. If you choose to, you can also upload an image from your desktop or smartphone directly into your Tweet. Twitter will add this as a link within your tweet. An example is shown above.

3. What if I tweet something that I want to delete or change?

You can delete your tweet at any time by simply moving your cursor to your tweet and clicking on the “delete” option shown below your tweet. It is relevant to note that you can only delete your tweets. If someone else liked your tweet and retweeted it or mentioned it to their followers, it would continue to live on Twitter. The good news here is that the life of a tweet – the time it gets read, retweeted, etc. – is very short, at an estimated 18 minutes!

4. What‘s with the hashtags?

A hashtag is just a glorified name for the “#” sign which most of us refer to as the number sign or pound sign. When used in front of a word or a subject, Twitter groups other tweets with the same hashtag for future searches and engagement. The intent is to help users find others on Twitter with the same interests as you. You can start your own topic by simply inserting the hashtag in front of the subject that you want to highlight. Multiple topics can be hashtagged in a tweet; though the excessive use of it in tweets is considered bad form.

5. How do I retweet?

When you send someone else’s tweet to your followers, it is referred to as a retweet. You can do this by clicking the retweet option below the original tweet. When you retweet directly from Twitter, your followers will see the original tweet, including the profile picture of the person who tweeted it.

6. Can I modify other people’s tweets?

Free social media management tools like Hootsuite allow you to modify tweets sent by others and forward them to your followers with your own profile picture. Shown here is an example. The one on the top shows how the original retweet would have looked. In comparison, the tweet that I sent out using Hootsuite shows my profile image and a mention of @Allstream. If you make changes to the body of the original tweet, the protocol is to add the letters MT to the beginning of the tweet to show that the tweet has been modified.

7. Can I hide my tweets from the public?

Yes, you can. Though, it would defeat the purpose of being on a social media network. When you set up an account on Twitter, the default option is set to “public.” In this mode, your tweets are visible to everyone on Twitter. By modifying your privacy setting to “protect my tweets,” people will require your explicit approval to follow you, and your tweets will be visible only to them. As a rule, I do not follow anyone who has a protected profile.

8. Can I send tweets to particular people?

You can send direct messages only to people who follow you. These messages are treated as private and hidden from the public view. If you want to send a message to someone who does not follow you, the best option is to either reply to one of their tweets or “mention” them in your tweet by adding their @username Twitter handle anywhere in the body of your tweet. Unlike direct messages, replies and mentions are visible to the public.

9. My Twitter account is personal, should I be concerned if my colleagues follow me?

It is always a good practice to include a disclaimer like “tweets reflect my views and not my employer’s” in your profile, to avoid any ambiguity. However, as this Forbes.com post points out, you may still be held accountable by your employer for insensitive or offensive tweets that you send out publicly.

10. Are there any rules about following people?

Twitter has put in place some rules and limits to ensure that users do not aggressively follow or unfollow users. Please follow this rules and best practices link to find out more.

So, don’t be afraid of tweeting.

You can start by tweeting this blog post to your followers!