Are you aware of the growing popularity of Twitter? It’s usage by people in all types of businesses find themselves using the microblogging application for all sorts of uses. But what I’ve come to find out is that there’s a whole new vocabulary that needs to be learned in order to fully take advantage of the service. If you want to walk the walk…you need to talk the talk. So here’s a few terms and definitions that will help you communicate better with fellow tweeters:
Tweeter
Someone who posts a message on Twitter equal to or less than 140 characters.
FTW – For the win
Known more for a celebratory remark left at the end of the tweet, the acronym “FTW” is basically saying that something rocks, a person has come through in a clutch, or someone or something has saved the moment/day. An example would be that if I needed some information and tweeted out a question, someone responds with the answer and then my next tweet would be “John Doe FTW!”.
RT – Retweet
A retweet is basically retweeting someone’s previous tweet. This is not necessarily a sign that you agree or disagree with what they tweet, but probably that you find it interesting that you would like to share with your friends and followers. Attribution of the tweet to the original tweeter is needed.
H/T – Hat Tip
A hat tip is a acknowledgement that the tweet you are sending was entirely or partially inspired by someone else’s tweet or conversation. Failure to attribute ideas and tweets to their source is poor etiquette.
#Hashtag
Hashtags are phrases or keywords that can be used to monitor who is saying what about a particular topic. Take for example the latest elections in Iran. If you wanted to see which tweeters are saying something about the Iran elections, then on Twitter’s search engine, you can just input the common hashtag (in this case it’s #IranElection) and voila! Standards for hashtags are one word (#Conference) or multiple words strewn together without any spaces (#EventConferenceTheme).
DM – Direct Message
One of the core features of Twitter is the ability to send a direct message to your friends. Currently the only way to send DMs is if the recipient is following you & for them to respond with a DM, you would need to be following them. Direct messaging is the way on Twitter for you to send private messages, but aren’t necessarily restricted to 140 characters.
Fail Whale
Perhaps more synonymous with the web 1.0 days of an error page that you received when you typed in the wrong web address or went to a link that had a broken page. The fail whale is Twitter’s version of saying that something is broken. It initially began with Twitter but now with the web 2.0 technology, anything that works one moment and then breaks the next because of some faulty error or code will typically be stated as “seeing the fail whale”.
Fail
Closely associated with the Fail Whale. Fail is the slang term that can be used to mean that something or someone has failed to meet expectations. For example, going to see a movie that you’ve heard is really good only to be disappointed? You might tweet your disappointment followed by the word “Fail”. If your objective is not met, then you could say the status is also “Fail”.
Twitter handle
This is the name that designates someone on Twitter. When someone asks what your Twitter handle is, you would give them your username. In my case, it would be “thekenyeung” so when someone wants to reply to me, using the standard format for sending a tweet to someone, it would be “@thekenyeung“.
Avatar
A picture of you or something that you think represents you that will be associated with your Twitter profile. It is preferable to have it be your brand or a picture of yourself – that way people will be able to know that they are (1) talking to someone serious about communication, (2) a real human being, and/or (3) you’re professional.
URL Shortener
Since Twitter only allows 140 characters, every single character counts. With URLs (or web addresses), you often find yourself with a lot of characters, so now there are multiple variations of URL shorteners. These websites will easily convert any website into a shortened form and some will even offer tracking capability that you can see how many twitter followers click on the link. Examples of URL shorteners include TinyURL, Bit.ly, is.gd, and Digg.
These are just some of the more common “Twitter-cabulary” things you might need to know when interacting with those on Twitter. Are there any other phrases, keywords or definitions you can think of?
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