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För att förstå hur Twitter fungerar bör man känna till några återkommande begrepp. Är begreppen rätt definierade? Är det något som saknas?

Tweet. A message must fit within 140 characters, and is called a tweet. It can be compared with a post, a message or an update. The reason that it is just 140 characters is so it is possible to send tweets within a SMS from your phone.

@Username. To send a tweet directly to another user, you need to put her username into the tweet. This is done be putting @ before her username, like @username, she will then get a notification about the tweet, even if she is not following you. This is used for replying to a tweet and/or to mention someone in a tweet.

Direct message (DM). This could be compared to a private tweet, no one except the one you send it to can see it. You can just send DMs to people who are following you, and receive them only from people you are following.

ReTweet (RT). This is the function to share ideas or messages that someone has tweeted, you simply repost (retweet) it. A correctly RT should look something like this: “RT @username: The original tweet”. RT is a good way to find new interesting people to follow. You could even keep RT in mind when you write a regular tweet, if you use all the 140 characters no one can RT your tweet. A “retweetably” tweet should therefore use less characters, so that “RT” and your username fits.

#Hashtag. With a hashtag you can categorize, or tag, your tweet. You want to do this, to get people who are not following to see the tweet in question. This could be used in example when twittering about a TV show, #AmericanIdol, or when participating in a seminar, #TED. To create a hashtag just put a # before the tag, like #tag, and it transforms into a link.

Shortened URLs. Since Twitter just gives you 140 characters per tweet, you need to watch your words. This is a problem when including a URL into a tweet, some URLs are even longer than 140 characters. To solve this, Twitter has a built-in URL shortener. Automatically, Twitter transform a long URL into a shorter one which directs you to the right website.