Twitter Dictionary

© So Buzzy | www.sobuzzy.be

# - Hashtag

The hashtag symbol (#) is used to mark keywords, phrases

or topics in a Tweet, and help them show more easily in

Twitter Search.

Using a hashtag turns the word or phrase into a link.

Clicking on a hashtagged word shows you all other Tweets

marked with that keyword.

@-sign

The @-sign is used to mention another Twitter account.

Within a tweet it becomes a link to that user’s profile, and

the user you mentioned will see that he or she was

mentioned in a tweet.

^-sign

The “hat” or “caret”-sign can be used in a tweet send by an

individual on behalf of a group account used by multiple

people so followers know who is tweeting. It usually

appears at the end of a Tweed and followed by the initials of

the user that sent the tweet.

Avatar

An avatar (also known as Profile Picture) is the graphical

representation of a user shown in front of a tweet.

Bio

A short personal description of maximum 160 characters

used to explain who you are on Twitter.

Direct Message (DM)

A Direct Message (= DM) is a private message on twitter

between 2 people. You can only send a Direct Message to a

user who follows you. You can either send a DM by clicking

on the radar icon and select “Direct Messages” or you start

a tweet with “d” followed by someone's username.

Favorite

To favorite a Tweet means that you like a message, and to

show that you click on the yellow star next to the tweet. The

sender will get a message that you favorited his tweet.

Feed

The stream of tweets

you see on you

homepage is called a

feed. It contains

updates from users

you follow on Twitter.

Follow

To follow someone on Twitter means that you subscribe to

his tweets by clicking on the “Follow” button located

directly above the user’s Twitter feed.

Follower

A follower is a Twitter user who follows you, and subscribed

to your tweets.

Follow Friday (FF)

#FF stands for “Follow Friday”, a way to recommend

another Twitter user by suggesting to your followers to

follow him.

Handle

Handle is a fancy word for your username on Twitter

(e.g. @Kel_83)

Lists

Twitter allows you to create lists used to create an overview of twitter

users in one group (for example a list where you combine “journalists”).

Once set-up, a Twitter user can select a Twitter List to view just the

tweets of those allocated to the list (acting as a filter).

Mention

Mentioning another user in your Tweet by including the @-sign

followed by their username is called a “mention”. Of course other users

can also mention you in their tweets.

Modified Tweet (MT)

Similar to a retweet (RT), meaning that you re-

share another user’s tweet, but in this case with

modifications. A Modifiet Tweet occurs most

often when a user needs to shorten the Tweet in

order to add commentary and still maintain the

maximum of 140 characters.

Promoted Tweets

Companies can pay to promote tweets at the top of search results on

Twitter, called Promoted Tweets.

Reply

When someone replies to your Tweet, they

will start the Tweet with your username (e.g.

@Kel_83)

Retweet (RT)

When you see a tweet you like written by someone else, and you want

to share that with your Followers you can Retweet, meaning re-share it.

By doing so you also give credit to the person who tweeted the original

message.

Timeline Your “home” timeline is a long stream showing all Tweets from those

you have chosen to follow on Twitter in a chronological order. When

you click on a Twitter user you can see his “personal” timeline, meaning

a list with all his tweets chronologically ordered.

Top Tweets

Tweets determined by a Twitter algorithm to be the most popular or

resonant on Twitter at any given time.

Tweet

A public message posted via Twitter

containing 140 characters or fewer is

called a Tweet.

Twitterer

A Twitter user who posts and reads Tweets is called a Twitterer. Twitter

users are also called Tweeps, Twits, Tweeple, Twitterai, … and many

other names.

Unfollow

When you stop following another Twitter user you “unfollow” him. His

tweets will no longer show up in your home timeline. But no worries, he

won’t be alerted that you stopped following him.

Verified Account

A verified Twitter account is an account that Twitter has confirmed to

be the real person. Twitter does this mostly for celebrities and ads a

symbol on their profile next to their username to make it clearfor

fans that they are following the real deal, and not a fake account.

Bedankt voor jullie aandacht!

You still have Twitter Questions?

Get in touch ;-) And don’t forget to follow me on Twitter:

@Kel_83: tweets (mostly in Dutch) about dogs, cats, tv, (digital) media, …

@SoBuzzy_BE tweets (in English) about social media