Hello, and welcome to Twitter. If you now feel welcomed, then that means that you are indeed new to Twitter and probably need a little assistance. Lately, I have seen a lot of my Facebook friends, who according to their walls use Facebook almost every hour of their life, come over to Twitter and don’t know how to send an @reply or DM (Direct Message). They also seem to not know how to get new followers which ultimately improves the overall Twitter experience. If you are one of these people, then don’t worry. If someone calls you dumb, just come to the realization that you probably are because it took you this long to get a Twitter account in the first place. Fret/be ashamed no more, this guide is here to help.
Step 1. Create An Account: Twitter has one of the easiest registration processes of any social network. Head on over here, enter your full name, username, password, and email. That’s it! You can add some of the recommended random people on the next page but they are all extremely populated accounts. There’s a good chance that they won’t add you back, so unless there is a news network or politician that you would like to read on a daily basis, you can just skip this step.
Step 2. Follow Me: Here’s a deal for you. If you read this guide, and then follow me, making me one of your first followers, I’ll follow you back. Just click this link, click “follow”, and then send me a message as instructed on the next step.
Step 3. Send a reply (now called a mention): This is where the magic of Twitter starts happening. If you want to send a message to someone, all you have to do is type an “@” symbol in front of their name. For example, if you just followed me from step 2, and want to let me know about it so that I can follow you back, go to your Twitter page, and at the top type “@zea Hey! I just followed you!” or whatever your little heart desires, and of course without the quotes. If you want to reply to someone’s tweet, click the little 
button and it will automatically put the “@zea” in the type box for you, and tie your message to their reply.
Step 4. Your replies and checking a conversation: If someone replies to you or mentions you in their tweet, you will either see it in your public timeline or on your “@username” link on the right sidebar. Here, you will see the respective tweet, along with a timestamp and conversation link under it. It will look something like this: 1:26 PM Apr 27th from Whoever in reply to zea. If you click the timestamp, it will take you directly to the tweet, or, if you click “in reply to” you can see what they are replying to.
Step 5. Direct Messages: If you want to tell someone something without the whole world seeing, then either click on your “Direct Messages” link in the sidebar, or instead of putting an “@” in front of their name, put a “D” or “DM”. This will send them a private message, and hopefully you’ll secret will remain a secret. Unless they decide to be a mean follower and reveal it.
Step 6. Get More Twitter Followers: Twitter isn’t Facebook, MySpace, Xanga, FriendFeed, Orkut, or any other one of those personal social network. Twitter is open to everyone, so following or contacting a random person is the cool thing to do. If you go to a friend’s page and see someone that might be interesting to you, and you want to follow their tweets, add them. If you want to get a lot of followers fast, add a whole bunch of people. Just not too many, or Twitter may ban you. Perhaps only a fourth of them will follow you back, but this is definitely an option. Make sure to update frequently – someone who doesn’t tweet will lose friends. And also, make sure you have a profile picture. Having the default avatar of 0_o is just creepy.
Step 7. Search: Searching Twitter is really fun, and useful to network with people with similar interests (trends), or a way to find people around you. Head on over to search.twitter.com, or use it in your sidebar for those select of you that have it enabled. Search for events in your home town, or find people tweeting about the stuff that you want to tweet about, and follow them. I’d recommend following a lot of the people in your city, so if something big is happening or going on, you’ll know about it.
Step 8. Remember What Twitter is For: Twitter isn’t a place to spam, write in all caps, be mean, or just plain annoying. That’s for other social networks. If you have somthing interesting or neat going on in your life, tweet about it. If you just got a new iPhone, tweet about it. If you are at a large event, tweet about it. If you want to yell at someone because they stole your girlfriend, head on over to Facebook.
Well, that’s my Twitter Starter’s guide. I hope new tweeters find this helpful, and I hope usual tweeters find this interesting. Twitter is really fun once you get going, and I hope your experience will be as good as mine.
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