Tweet

What is an Tweet ?

A “tweet” is the special name for an entry made on the microblogging site, Twitter. Up to 280 characters long, tweets can consist of random status updates, news, commentary, or anything an individual wants to communicate to followers at that moment, including personal messages to other users or groups and links to external content (articles, photos, videos).

It is simply a post on Twitter, which is a very network and microblogging service. Because Twitter only allows messages of 280 characters or less, it’s likely called a tweet because it sorts of resembles the same type of short and sweet chirp you might hear from a bird.

Similar to Facebook status updates, you can share media-rich links, images, and videos in a tweet as long as you keep it at 280 characters or less. Twitter automatically counts all shared links as 23 characters, no matter how long it is — giving you more room to write a message with longer links.

Twitter has always had the 280-character limit since it first came about in 2006, but only recently have there been reports about plans to introduce a new service that will allow users to expand their posts beyond that limit.

 Different Types of Tweets

Anything you post on Twitter, either from the web or using a mobile app, is considered a tweet, but the way you tweet can be broken down into different types. Here are the Principal ways people tweet on Twitter.

Regular: Just plain text and not much else.

  • In the Home timeline of anyone who is following the sender.

Image : You can upload up to four images in one tweet to be displayed alongside a message.

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  • You can also tag other Twitter users in your images, which will show up in their notifications.

Video : You can upload a video, edit it and post it with a message (if it’s 30 seconds or less).

Media-rich link : When you include a link, Twitter Card integration may pull a small snippet of information displayed on that website page, like an article title, an image thumbnail or a video.

Location: When you compose a tweet, you’ll see an option that automatically detects your geographical location, which you can use to include in your tweet.

  • You can edit your location by searching for a specific place too.

@mention : When you’re having a conversation with another user, you must add an “@” sign before their username for it to show up in their notifications. An easier way to generate this is by hitting the arrow button shown beneath any of their  or clicking the “Tweet to” button displayed on their profile. @mentions are only public to users who are following you and the user you’re mentioning.

Retweet: A retweet is a repost of another user’s tweet.

  • To do this, you simply click the double arrow retweet button underneath anyone’s tweet to display their tweet, profile image and name to give them full credit.
  • The other way to do it is by manual retweeting, which involves copying and pasting their tweet while adding RT @username at the beginning of it.

Replies :

  •  Definition: A reply is when you respond to another person’s Tweet.
  •  Where it appears for the sender: On the sender’s profile page.
  •  Where it appears for the recipient: In the recipient’s Notifications tab. Like mentions, replies will also appear in the recipient’s Home timeline if they are following the sender.
  •  Who else sees it? Anyone following the sender and the recipient of a reply will see it in their Home timeline.
  •  Places it will never appear: On anyone’s profile page, unless they sent the reply.

Poll : Polls are new to Twitter, and you’ll see the option when you click to compose a new tweet.

  • Polls allow you to ask a question and add different choices that followers can choose to answer.
  • You can see the answers in real time as they come in.
  • They automatically end after 24 hours.

 

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