We hope you'll join us for TW Chats, our monthly chat on Twitter. If you're new to Twitter, we've developed a guide for following the live conversation. Read on …
A Twitter "chat" is basically several people tweeting about a similar topic on Twitter. What joins the tweets together in a linear chat is a common "hashtag." (Pre-Twitter, you might have recognized the hashtag as the "pound" sign on your phone.)
The hashtag has taken on a life of its own on Twitter. Everything from #travel to #bookavacationbeforetheholidays can be a "hashtag." Establishing a hashtag enables people to search and converse via tweet. The tweets show up in a chronological list, resembling a live chat.
We've chosen the term "#twchats" for our monthly chats.
Here's how you do it. First, sign up or log into Twitter at www.twitter.com.
Once you get to a page with a search box at the top, type in the term #twchats. You'll get a lineup of tweets that contain that term. By scrolling up and down, you'll be able to follow the conversation sequentially.
Here's where you jump in. Go up to the top right-hand corner of the screen where the quill-pen icon is located. Once you click it, you'll get a popup dialog box. Type a short note (aka a tweet), add the term "#twchats" and hit return or "tweet." Now your tweet will become part of the list of tweets.
If you mouse or hover over any tweet, you'll see three icons pop up: The reply, the retweet and the favorite.
Use "reply" to respond directly to a person who's tweeted. When you hit the reply button, you'll get a dialog box with that person's Twitter name already pre-populated. Write a response, including the term #twchats, and hit return. Now your tweet is part of the conversation.
Conversely, someone might be replying to you. Hit the @connect button on the top of the page to check your mentions and recent Twitter activity.
Also worth noting: The refresh. The page will not display new Tweets until you hit a bar near the top of the page that might say something like "3 new Tweets." Once you do, you'll see all the recent Twitter activity on your hashtag (#twchats, in this case).
A "retweet" is rebroadcasting someone else's tweet to your followers. Just hit the retweet button, review, and post. Wondering what the term "RT" is? It means "retweet." A manual retweet means you're manually copying someone else's tweet (use the quill-pen box) and then adding your own comments to the tweet. Custom dictates you add the term "RT" to the tweet before sending.
You can also "favorite" a tweet, and it will be saved in a favorites list on your profile page for later.
You can also view our "how-to" videos on our video page. Hope to see you at #twchats. For more, check out twitter.com/chatstw.