I've just joined Twitter. Really I know next to nothing about it so can I ask: do I have to log in twice to get in? Does everybody get to read my posts or am I talking to myself? Also how do I log out?
How are you accessing Twitter? If it's via an app, you'll more than likely stay logged in, if it's on the desktop site you can tick a box to stay logged in - to sign out, go to the cog in the top right hand side.
Only people who follow you will see your tweets, start by following some people, have a look on here and see who has linked their twitter. People will then start following you back - these will then be the people that will see your tweets. Twitter is interactive, you have to put some effort into it. Oh and I often find the "normal" people better to follow than "celebs"
you should stay logged in via the app then (I don't use the official app and I don't use any apple products so not sure how you go about logging out of that, but unless you're sharing an iPad with someone with a different twitter account, you shouldn't really need to log out?)
Does everybody get to read my posts or am I talking to myself?.
You can either create a new Tweet from yourself, or reply to someone else's tweet. For the former no-one will see it unless you either have people following you, or you tagged it with a hashtag that ties it to an going theme - e.g. #outKast is currently high in the trending lists, so you'd be tagging onto that. A reply will join onto the bottom of a conversation and is visible when other users expand a tweet to show replies.
Play with it - it's pretty simple, which is part of its appeal.
It is possible to anyone to read your tweets without them following you, or them searching for a hash tag, or them even having a Twitter account themselves. However, to do that they do need to know your Twitter account name, so it's highly unlikely to occur by accident.
For example, anyone can access tweets posted by Phil Liggett (the cycling commentator) by going to: https://twitter.com/philliggett
If you tweet something out (by composing a tweet) then it will appear on the home feed of your followers automatically, so they might see it. They also might not see it though as they might be following lots of different people and things and have quite a lot of stuff "happening" on there.
There are other ways that people will see your tweets that don't depend on people following you though. For instance, the search facility. If you are talking about a topic, then anyone who searches that topic may see your tweet. You can increase the visibility of your tweet by using hashtags. Hashtags are basically keywords that link your tweet to a topic (although they are misused a lot).
You can also direct tweets at an individual, so if you are following someone (or not) you can use their screen name preceded by an @ symbol; like this "@somebody whatever you want to say", this will direct that tweet at that person. You can include more than one person (directing it at several people).
If you do this, then your tweet will appear in their mention timeline so they will see it, well provided they aren't a celeb or authority media outlet or whatever who have lots of people talking to them.
Likewise if you open your mention timeline you will see tweets directed at you.
If you direct a tweet at someone, anyone who searches that person will see your tweet in the search results.
Another thing is replying to tweets, so if you see something and reply to it, the person who made the original tweet will see it as will anyone who searches that topic (in the search results) and it will appear in the conversation thread below the tweet when people expand it, a bit like opening a thread here..
So, you don't *need* followers as such, it depends how you use Twitter and different people use it in different ways. If you start following people, talking about things, responding to things etc. you'll start to gain followers. If you say nothing then you won't.
Twitter isn't all about tweeting out what you had for breakfast into the abyss, people use it to comment on news stories, talk to celebs and ask questions, or just ask questions about things, have conversations, mess around, all sorts.
Comments
Only people who follow you will see your tweets, start by following some people, have a look on here and see who has linked their twitter. People will then start following you back - these will then be the people that will see your tweets. Twitter is interactive, you have to put some effort into it. Oh and I often find the "normal" people better to follow than "celebs"
Play with it - it's pretty simple, which is part of its appeal.
For example, anyone can access tweets posted by Phil Liggett (the cycling commentator) by going to:
https://twitter.com/philliggett
There are other ways that people will see your tweets that don't depend on people following you though. For instance, the search facility. If you are talking about a topic, then anyone who searches that topic may see your tweet. You can increase the visibility of your tweet by using hashtags. Hashtags are basically keywords that link your tweet to a topic (although they are misused a lot).
You can also direct tweets at an individual, so if you are following someone (or not) you can use their screen name preceded by an @ symbol; like this "@somebody whatever you want to say", this will direct that tweet at that person. You can include more than one person (directing it at several people).
If you do this, then your tweet will appear in their mention timeline so they will see it, well provided they aren't a celeb or authority media outlet or whatever who have lots of people talking to them.
Likewise if you open your mention timeline you will see tweets directed at you.
If you direct a tweet at someone, anyone who searches that person will see your tweet in the search results.
Another thing is replying to tweets, so if you see something and reply to it, the person who made the original tweet will see it as will anyone who searches that topic (in the search results) and it will appear in the conversation thread below the tweet when people expand it, a bit like opening a thread here..
So, you don't *need* followers as such, it depends how you use Twitter and different people use it in different ways. If you start following people, talking about things, responding to things etc. you'll start to gain followers. If you say nothing then you won't.
Twitter isn't all about tweeting out what you had for breakfast into the abyss, people use it to comment on news stories, talk to celebs and ask questions, or just ask questions about things, have conversations, mess around, all sorts.
I hope this all makes sense