What is Twitter?

Twitter is, essentially, a micro-blog, or a mini online diary. You can type the answer to "What Are You Doing?" in 140 characters or less as frequently as you like.

It is similar to writing a status update on Facebook so you can see what others are up to, or talking about, and vice versa.

If you keep updating (but not too often), you will end up with a profile that is a list of your updates - this is what others will see when they visit your page.

You can see what other people are writing by choosing to "follow" them. This means their updates, or "tweets", will come up on your Home page in chronological order.

Other people can follow your updates - these people are called, predictably, your "followers". You can see how many followers you have underneath your profile picture.

If you sign up, start by finding people to follow under Find People.

Tweet tips

Frequency

There are not really many rules about the frequency or content when you tweet. But be aware that if you are doing 20 updates a day, people might be less inclined to follow.

This is because you will bung up their timeline showing the latest messages, and stop them seeing their other updates.

I tweet up to five times a day - with a ratio of 80% interesting (I hope) to 20% pointless, and ranging from random thoughts through to music, tech, and sharing links.

Engaging

If someone asks you a question, reply to them with an @ symbol in front of their Twitter name - this tweet will come up in their "replies" section and not get lost in the stream.

You can also "re-tweet", which is effectively forwarding someone else's tweet to your own followers, normally with a view to helping them get answers or disseminate information.

The standard practice for this is to add "RT" at the beginning of your re-tweet.

Hashtags

You can tag your own tweets so they can appear in filters - for example, #ces09 will show all tweets that have been tagged with the marker for the Consumer Electronics Show.

Rather like football chants, these tags appear to proliferate organically until everyone is using the same one.

For instance, you could use the newer hashtag #lunchtweet to describe what you are having for lunch. It does not matter where you put your hashtag in your tweet.

Interactivity

To make the most out of Twitter, remember that it is not just about broadcasting your thoughts, it is also about having conversations, answering queries and adding your voice to a debate.

Tweeting should be human and reasonably informal.

Pitfalls

Be aware that everything you write is evidence, and will be on the internet forever.