Just before you start using Twitter, I want to introduce you to a few of the main features that you may have noticed on Twitter. Some of these features are linked to messages and you may have seen letters and symbols that make little sense. This short guide is here to help. First up, a glossary of the terms of Twitter:

@Replies

A reply is where you want to react to what someone else has tweeted by replying to it publicly. If you place the ‘at’ symbol in front of their name (with no space) then the message will appear in the replies list on that person’s profile as well as on Twitter for all to read. Large-scale conversations can start this way and it can also increase your followers as people will follow you if you’re tweeting something interesting that adds to the conversation. You can find all the replies that mention you by clicking on your username on the right of the screen.

Retweets

A retweet is simply the name given to what happens when you forward on a tweet that someone else has posted. To signal that it’s a retweet and not your own post, you put the letters RT (no space between them) before the tweet you want to forward. As you gain more followers and become more influential in your field, people may ask you to retweet what they’ve said in the hope of reaching a larger audience.

Trending Topics

Once you’ve set up your account on Twitter, you may notice the words ‘Trending Topics’ in the right column beneath your profile info. Next to it is an arrow which, when clicked, will reveal the topics that people are talking about most on Twitter. This is done via Twitter Search, which I’ll be writing about later on in the book. When you click one of the words in the list, it searches for it on Twitter and shows you a list of the most recent posts to mention that keyword. This is a clever tool as it gives you a good idea of the trends on Twitter which will be particularly helpful to all you internet marketers. The bonus chapter at the end of the book shows you how to use this and gives you even more great tools.

Hash tags

Nothing to do with the narcotics trade, these are the tags or keywords that are placed directly after the hash or pound symbol (#) in people’s tweets. By putting one of these in your tweet, it makes that word into a link which people can click on. When they do, it will search all the posts that contain that hash tag. Again, this can be useful when you want to determine what people are talking about. If you see a trend that is linked to your site or blog, write something about it on your blog and post a link to it on Twitter so that some of the traffic that’s talking about that subject is directed to your site. If you’re into internet marketing, you can also use this to see what people need.

One popular hash tag is the Follow Friday tag. Every Friday, the good people of Twitter can tweet about the people they like to follow and who they think others would like to follow.

DMs

This simply stands for Direct Message and is the way in which you can communicate privately with other Twitter members, rather than tweeting to all of them. You must be following the person you want to DM and they must be following you for you to be able to send them a message (and vice versa). Unlike a reply, these messages are only seen by the person you’re sending it to.

Don’t Sell

Although we are going to be using Twitter for business and as a means to drive more leads to your site, I need to make one thing clear before we get started. It’s a point that many marketers will disagree with but I know from experience that I’m right, no matter what country you live in or what business you’re in.

People don’t like being sold to, so don’t use Twitter to direct sell to anyone.

However, people do like to have their problems solved or to get good information about the things that interest them. If you tweet things like: ‘Buy my book now’ followed by a link to it, no one will want to follow you and no one will buy from you. They have to know you, then like and then trust you before they will want to buy from you.

Work on building their trust by providing good information and you’ll be surprised how many people will become interested in how you can help them further. Go to them with a strong offering and then let them come to you.

Matthew Duggan is an internet marketing entrepreneur and social media author. He lives is London and is currently working on a social media e-course.

You can get Matthew’s FREE Twitter course and access the exclusive members’ area at http://www.buildyourfollowers.com.