What is Twitter and how to create a Twitter account

Twitter is one of the world’s most popular online news and social networks, with over 300 million active users. Twitter is self-described as “the place to find out about what’s happening in the world right now.” In other words, Twitter is a real-time information sharing website, used by all sorts of people and organisations for a number of reasons - from light entertainment and socialising, to news sharing, to engagement in causes, services and products.

Twitter user can be publicly share ‘tweets’ - 140 character-limit snippets of information shared with their ‘followers’. Most of political parties and leaders use Twitter account for campaigning their party rally. And similarly, most of celebrities in the world use to described his/herself on Twitter.

Twitter's others features:

Mentions: Twitter users can directly address another user by put typing the ‘@’ symbol and entering in their username. The other user will then receive an alert saying they’ve been mentioned in a tweet.

Direct messages: each Twitter profile also has a message inbox allowing users to privately message each other.

Retweets: which is when one user takes a tweet posted by another user and re-posts (called re-tweets) it as their own tweet, automatically crediting the source.

Trending Topics & hashtags (‘#’): all Twitter users are able to ‘mark-up’ any particular word or phrase that they think is of wider public interest, by prefixing the hashtag (‘#’) symbol. E.g. #digital-skills. If many other users also start using that hash-tagged phrase, Twitter picks up on that and lists it as a trending topic. It’s basically a way for users to understand what the ‘hottest topics’ are currently being talked about via Twitter at any given moment.

Lists: users can group and categories all Twitter profiles that are of interest to them. For example, a Councillor may create a ‘Local charities and non-profits’ or a ‘Press and media’ list to help them to quickly look up particular topics of interest.

In this tutorial, we're going to guide you how to create an account on Twitter, follow the pictorial steps:

Step 1: set up a profile by visiting the Twitter website and following the instructions.

Steps: 01 and 02

Steps: 03 and 04

Step 2: search for and start following relevant people, organisations and groups who may be of interest to you.

Steps: 05 and 06

Step 3: tweet something. Click on the 'What's happening?' text box to let followers know what you’re doing or thinking and then click on the 'Tweet' button. Note: tweets are limited to 140 or fewer characters.

Step 4: tweet regularly. To get the most out of Twitter, you need to build a following by letting people know you’re there. And to do that, you need to commit to using it regularly as a real-time tool. Tweet regularly (at least once a day) sharing what you’re up to, what your plans are, or what your view is on a particular issue etc. The more you do that, the more other profiles who share your interests will follow and engage with you via Twitter.

Step 5: promote your profile. Make sure you regularly mention that you can be found on Twitter and share your profile handle (@username) at meetings, events, and on your website, blog, and any wider online channels.

I hope this tutorial has helped you to learn what is Twitter and how to create a new account on Twitter.

Have Fun!