Twitter is a simple platform – compared to Facebook. In that respect – it is…what it is. Over time…the actual user experience on the platform has improved – although during the time that it wasn’t too great, most people turned to using 3^rd party applications to use the platform (e.g. dashboards like Hootsuite; or mobile phone apps). This has probably harmed Twitter a little to an extent, because it has to now attract users back to the platform in order to leverage % usability on selling its advertising options.

Useability and Learning The Platform

It is much easier to work out the functionality by playing on the platform long enough by yourself. The bigger questions you may have are things like:

1. Where do the tweets go?
2. What must I tweet?
3. If I see a tweet, who else does?
4. Who sees my tweets?…and so on.

Believe you me…no question you ask will be silly – I have heard them all. It’s all part of the learning – and then once you get confident in the answers to your questions, then the magic begins…you understand the power of the simplicity.

The Beauty of Limitation

With this platform – you are limited to only posting (called “tweeting”) 140 characters – but this can include a URL (website/blog/YouTube video address) or a link to an image. You may think “Good grief”…but I promise you, once you get into it…you get better at expressing yourself in 140 characters (and you learn to cut the Bullwhack out – a handy skill for life if you think about it!)

Purpose of Short Prompts

You are meant to really give your tweet readers a nibble…a taster for more…so your 140 characters is only a hook, to get them to click on your link (whatever that is). This gets you to think more innovatively about how to inspire people to carry on following you, or indeed to share your content.

LIVE Information Highway

Twitter has been described as an Information Highway – and I think this is a great definition. The thing about a highway is that you can either:

(a)   sit at a service station along the way and watch the cars go by and not do anything (commonly called a “Listener” on Twitter – a person who just reads tweets but doesn’t interact); or you can choose to

(b)   interact with the cars on the motorway…by joining the flow when you want to; fit into the stream (be a good driver)…and come off when you want to and you’ve had enough.

You do not (and cannot) read everything in your tweet stream…the nature of it is that your eye will catch what it catches…so be OK with that!

All tweets you see when you are on the platform are what has been sent at that specific time – it is literally LIVE and kicking.

Filtering Information

You can use lists to help you manage who you are following. This way you can categorise your stream into subjects that mean something to you and you can easily filter tweets to match what you would like to look at. (You can also add Tweeters to a list without actually following them – which gets really useful when you have been on the platform as long as I have!)

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If you have any specific or general questions about Twitter, please feel free to ask them by popping a comment below – I’m more than happy to help where I can or point you in a useful direction!