What is Twitter and How Does It Work?

It is possible that, on more than one occasion, you have wondered what Twitter is, given its social impact today and the large number of mentions of this platform across all media.

And it is that, without a doubt, being a network with more than 360 million active users around the world, it is not surprising that, at least, you have been piqued by curiosity to know it and how it works inside.

In addition, this is an almost essential channel that you must include within the Social Media Plan of your company or digital business. For this reason, and without further ado, today you will find out, since in addition to its exact definition, I will show you exactly what Twitter is for and what things you can do on it.

What is Twitter?

Twitter is a microblogging social network that allows you to send messages of 280 characters, which can be seen by other users, and you can follow other accounts of your interest, as well as get followers who, in turn, follow you.

These messages are called “tweets” and, although these are specifically public, it is also possible to start private conversations, where these messages are called DM (Direct Messages or “direct messages”).

Twitter is, in other words, one of the social networks with the most users worldwide and has the most active users (as we mentioned before, it already exceeds the 390 million barrier).

How was Twitter really born?

If we go back to the origins of this digital platform, we can say that it was founded by Jack Dorsey, Evan Williams and Biz Stone in 2006.

At the beginning, they were clear about the concept they wanted to create: a platform that would “inherit” the original essence of classic mobile SMS and, in turn, allow users to be permanently connected and stay aware of updates. of the other users.

The first dilemma was motivated by its name, which was originally called “Status ” (stat.us). However, Dorsey and company intended to collect, in their denomination, the essence of being able to share our thoughts with our friends from wherever we are.

Then, they had the great idea to come up with a new name: ” twitch ” ( tic ).

This came to simulate the vibration sound of smartphones when receiving a short message from this social network. But they weren’t too convinced either.

All this, until they finally thought of ” Twitter “, a name that appears to date, since according to them (and the dictionary), it means something like “small burst of inconsequential information” and “the sound of birds when communicating between them”.

From there comes, in addition to your pet’s figure, the essence of why this platform is called that way today. In addition, it was an easy name, short, and in tenths of seconds, it was recognizable by everyone who heard it.

And, now that you know how it was born, you may be wondering what its main virtues are:

What exactly is Twitter for?

With the use of this platform, we can achieve several beneficial effects for our brand and to generate a reputation in accordance with our institutional values:

Create brand image

As I mentioned earlier, this social network allows us to publicize our company and the values we want to promote on the Internet, helping more people around the world learn about it every day, given the platform’s international reach.

Thus, by maintaining consistent activity and being present at online events in our commercial sector, we will achieve better Brand Positioning in the minds of our potential clients.

Promote products

We can use the “tweets” to promote our products, although we must not abuse the commercial nature of these messages, if we want to get followers on a recurring basis.

The best thing, as with all social platforms, is undoubtedly to provide valuable content to users, while occasionally mentioning our products or services and their benefits.

Communicate relevant facts

If we make any relevant change within the company, such as the creation of a new division, we can use this channel to communicate it in an agile and useful way.

Its markedly informative and journalistic nature means that any evolution in our company may be of interest to the users who are there and who follow us.

Analyze the competition

Just as we can communicate important things, our competitors will do so as well, and we can monitor the messages and conversations of other companies in our sector so that, based on the relationships they establish, we can make business decisions.

Hidden lists are a very useful tool for this purpose and are also widely used by businesses that do not want their conversations to be public.

Customer Support

This social network can be a powerful customer service channel, due to its immediacy and proximity. Many companies provide this service through a robot or “ChatBot”, something that helps in a correct and, above all, fast attention.

Today, although the most common way for users to contact brands is still by email, Twitter is increasingly being offered as a channel for them to send messages and suggestions.

Learn more about our client

Given the incessant conversation on this social network, we can talk with our customers and potential buyers about issues that concern them and relate to our company or sector.

Therefore, we must take advantage of each of our followers’ comments to turn them into business opportunities and, in turn, identify our online Target Audience or buyer persona.

Networking

We can also take this wonderful “offline” marketing technique online, thanks to Twitter, since it allows us to connect at the company level with influential people in our sector, who we can turn into ambassadors for our brand or simply people who know us.

In this way, they will be able to recommend us in the future.

In addition, by networking “at the same level”, we can also establish “win-win” relationships with other professionals or other businesses, which can lead to beneficial joint actions for both parties.

Human resources management

Like any social network, it leaves a mark on the people who use it, which is why it is a powerful tool for potential candidates to learn about our organization, whether we are recruiters for a company or managing this type of task.

Thus, we can monitor and investigate any candidate who has previously submitted their Curriculum Vitae to our offices.

Transmitter of knowledge

Our company must demonstrate sufficient knowledge of our sector of activity for clients to trust us.

One way to transmit this knowledge is through social networks, where we can disseminate articles from our own blog or share valuable content from others.

I am sure that after learning about the many utilities this social platform offers, you will want to start using it.

If so, you are ready to learn how to create a Twitter account, both for yourself and for your own business.

In addition, once you open your profile, you will be interested in knowing these concepts of the network:

Basic Twitter terminology, do you know them all?

Once you have fully understood what Twitter is, to better understand how it works, it is necessary that we master some terms that are basic and essential terms:

• Tweeter: is a user of this social network, usually represented by their username preceded by the at sign @username.
• Tweet or tweet: each one of the 140-character messages that can include images or links to other external media (videos, blog posts, etc.).
• Timeline: the place where we can see the messages a user has written in chronological order.
• Retweet or RT: when we share another user’s content that we find interesting, so that our followers can see it.
• Follower or follower: is the user who has decided to follow us to see the messages we publish.
• Following: the action we perform when we start following a user.
• List: we can create lists of users, grouping them by theme to follow them in a unified way; these lists can be public or private.
• DM, or Direct Message – a message that can be sent privately to a user.
• I like it: represented by a heart, we indicate that we find a tweet interesting.
• Hashtag: represented by a hashtag (#) followed by some characters, it allows grouping tweets on the social network with a common theme. In addition, hashtags are an essential tool at Congresses and Online Events to organize all related conversations.
• Trending topic: a ranking that groups the most-commented terms, which can be grouped by cities, countries, or worldwide.

How does Twitter work, and how can I use it within my Social Media strategy?

There are many and varied objectives that we can consider meeting within our social media strategy. The first thing is to be clear about these objectives to define how we are going to achieve them.

Some of the most common uses are:

Be a channel for capturing Web traffic

This network can be used to disseminate the content of our website. Creating quality content is just as important as ensuring it reaches as many people as possible.

In this way, we will get more and more Web traffic and, therefore, more people interested in visiting our website in search of content that interests them.

Build customer loyalty

When there is some interaction, it is easier to maintain contact with the client, both before and after the purchase, and thus be present in future purchase decisions.

Brand recognition

We can increase our brand’s visibility by being present on it, given the high number of users who use it daily.

Thus, the more mentions and interactions with positive connotations we obtain, the better.

A sales channel

Although neither this nor the other current social networks have been designed to sell directly, if we include links to our product sheets in an eCommerce context, we can use them to offer exclusive discounts to our followers.

In this way, we will increase other factors mentioned above, such as loyalty and recognition of our Trademark.

How can I send a tweet?

At the point where we have already decided on our strategy, we must be clear about how to send a tweet.

Once our user has been created, we click the “Tweet” button, and a window opens where we can write our message, keeping it to a maximum of 280 characters.

In addition, we can include something that is recommended, a link to our website, blog, a product sheet, etc.

We can also add images, GIFs, conduct surveys, and use the famous emoticons. You just have to hit the “Tweet” button again, and that’s it.

If we link to an article that adds value to users, we have a better chance of the content being shared by influencers and reaching a much larger audience. than what your followers suppose.

This is one of the most important benefits of the microblogging network: you can chat with any type of user, whether they have many or few followers, and make them an ambassador for our brand in the future.