Many people entering the world of Twitter for the first time can often get lost in the lingo and feel a little bit left out. If you don’t know your “retweets” from your “Follow Friday” take a look at the list of Twitter terminology below.
@ – The @ sign is used to call out usernames in Tweets, like this: Hello @Twitter! When a username is preceded by the @ sign, it becomes a link to a Twitter profile. See also Replies and Mentions.
Direct Messages – Also called a DM, these messages are private between only the sender and recipient. Tweets become DMs when they begin with “d username” to specify who the message is for.
Favourite – To favourite a Tweet means to mark it as one of your favourites by clicking the yellow star next to the message. You can also favourite via SMS.
Find People – The Find People tab (to find people) is Twitter’s search feature used to locate friends on the site.
Follow Friday (#FF) – #FF stands for “Follow Friday.” Twitter users often suggest who others should follow on Fridays by tweeting with the hashtag #FF.
Following – Your following number reflects the quantity of other Twitter users you have chosen to follow on the site.
Followers – A follower is another Twitter user who has followed you.
Geolocation / Geotagging – The use of location data in Tweets to tell us where you are in real time. It is also called “Tweet With Your Location.”
Hashtags “#” – The # symbol is used to mark keywords or topics in a Tweet. It was created organically by Twitter users.
Listed – To be included in another Twitter user’s list. Listed numbers and details appear in the statistics at the top of your profile.
Lists – Created groups of other Twitter users. Used to tie specific individuals into a group on your Twitter account. Displayed on the right side menu of your homepage.
Mention – Mentioning another user in your Tweet by including the @ sign followed directly by their username is called a “mention”. Also refers to Tweets in which your username was included.
Profile – A Twitter page displaying information about a user, as well as all the Tweets they have posted from their account.
Promoted Tweets – Tweets that selected businesses have paid to promote at the top of search results on Twitter.
Reply – A Tweet posted in reply to another user’s message, usually posted by clicking the “reply” button next to their Tweet in your timeline. Always begins with @username.
Retweet – To retweet, retweeting, retweeted. The act of forwarding another user’s Tweet to all of your followers.
RT – Abbreviated version of “retweet.” Placed before the retweeted text when users manually retweet a message. See also Retweet.
Saved Searches – Searches that a user has made that are saved on their profile.
Top Tweets – Tweets determined by a Twitter algorithm to be the most popular or resonant on Twitter at any given time.
Trending Topic – A subject algorithmically determined to be one of the most popular on Twitter at the moment.
Tweet – A message posted via Twitter containing 140 characters or fewer.
Tweeter – An account holder on Twitter who posts and reads Tweets. Also known as Twitterers.
Twitter – An information network made up of 140-character messages from all over the world.
Twitter Timeline – A real-time list of Tweets from those you follow. Appears on your Twitter home page.
Unfollow – To cease following another Twitter user. Their Tweets no longer show up in your home timeline.
URL – A Uniform Resource Locator (URL) is a web address that points to a unique page on the internet.
URL Shortener – URL shorteners are used to turn long URLs into shorter URLs. Shortening services can be found online.
Username – Must be unique and contain fewer than 15 characters. Is used to identify you on Twitter for replies and mentions.
Whale (Fail Whale) – The fail whale shows up on your screen when Twitter is being bogged down by too many Tweets. (Tip: hit refresh to make him go away!)
# – See “Hashtags”
If you are running your Twitter account for your business make sure you visit the Twitter For Business information page.
