In the first part of our guide, we saw the basic functions of twitter and how it can be used to communicate with friends. However, the concept of twitter goes much beyond just providing a medium of communication between yourself and your friends. Twitter has expanded itself to provide many other additional features that have turned tweets and ‘trends’ into well-known internet topics.
Trends
Trends are a new feature which shows the hottest topics that are being tweeted about within a specific time period (usually 24hrs). The top trends that have been dominating twitter are also shown and updated on a real-time basis. Trends are also divided on the basis of country so that one can know what the latest buzz word in a particular country is.
Twitter Search
Twitter search basically involves browsing through all the tweets made by various users to find the latest occurrences of a particular word. The results are also updated on a real time basis if you have a compatible browser. Hence, you can easily keep track of how many people think the keyword you have entered is good enough to be tweeted.
Twitter & Mobile
Twitter also provides you with the functionality to keep track of your tweets via mobile. By simply sending a few SMS, you can tweet your thoughts from wherever you are on a real-time basis. The full list of twitter commands for mobile is given below.
FOLLOW username
Start following a user
UNFOLLOW username
Stop following a user
ON/OFF
Turn all Tweet notifications on or off
ON/OFF username
Set Tweet notifications for a user on or off (you’ll still be following them even if you set it to off)
GET username
Shows you the latest tweet from any user
RT username
Retweet a user’s latest tweet
FAV username
Favorite a user’s latest tweet
D username your-message
Send a direct message to a user
As per your telecom subscriber’s settings, you may be charged for sending sms to twitter. However, receiving any updates via twitter on your mobile is free. For further details, check out http://twitter.com/devices
General guidelines to use twitter
Twitter gives you a lot of freedom in making tweets. However, it is always advisable to at least follow a general set of guidelines while using twitter.
DO NOT
- Use twitter for purely advertisement purposes and spam with links all over your tweets.
- Squat on a username that could possibly be trademarked.
- Create many alias (duplicate) accounts either by yourself or using a BOT to do the same.
- Post any link that could lead people to a phishing or virus related or any site that violates the general etiquette of the World Wide Web.
If your account doesn’t fall under any of the above mentioned categories, you can very well contact twitter support at suspended@twitter.com and get your suspension revoked. In many cases, a misunderstanding might also be the reason for your suspension and sending an email can get your account access restored within hours.
Enjoy using twitter!