If you are new to Twitter, you might be a little confused by all the @ symbols, # tags, and “RT’s” you see everywhere. Well, no need to wonder anymore, here is a list and description of Twitter lingo to get you started!

• @username:
  • This is also known as a “Reply” or a “Mention”. For example, our username on Twitter is 239tweets. If you wanted to send a public message to us, you would start your tweet off with @239tweets. You can send these type of updates to both followers and non-followers.
• RT @username:
  • This is known as a “Retweet”. If you receive an interesting tweet from @239tweets for example, you can retweet this message to your followers if you think they would be interested to receive it. You can simply copy the original tweet, and then type in RT at the beginning of the tweet sent to you by @239tweets. This gives credit to the original tweeter, but allows you to send the tweet onto your followers also.This can also be a good way to give exposure to some interesting people that you follow, but your followers may not. If your followers see interesting tweets that you are retweeting from someone else, they will probably go and follow that person. This helps everyone to connect!
• #hashtags:
  • This is a great way to tag your tweet message under a specific subject for all Twitter users to see. For example, when we send a message out about our website, we might put #swfl at the end of it. This will make our tweet show up if someone uses Twitter’s search engine to search SWFL. The hash tag #swfl will be turned into a link in our tweet, and if clicked, will bring you to a search results page on Twitter.com of all tweets that have “swfl” in it. This allows you to find others talking about swfl on Twitter.
• #followfriday:
  • Follow Friday is probably the most popular hash tag on Twitter. It is now a tradition for Twitter users to recommend people that they follow to their followers on Fridays. To do this, you send out a tweet with #followfriday or the less used #ff, and include the username of the person you want to recommend by putting in @username. For example, a tweet to recommend 239tweets to your followers, you would send out a tweet with the following: “#followfriday @239tweets a Southwest Florida Twitter Directory”
• URL Shorteners:
  • In people’s tweets, you will commonly see links that start off with something similar to http://tinyurl.com/, http://bit.ly/, http://snipr.com/, http://vieurl.com/ etc. Due to the fact that Twitter limits you to 140 characters, you should use a URL shortener to be able to include links in your updates. Simply, visit one of those website listed above, and paste in the website URL you want to shorten, and it will provide you with a short URL. Copy this new URL, and paste it into your update. It will look weird, but trust us, the link will work!
• “Tweeple”:
  • A short word for describing “people on Twitter”.
• “Twitterverse”:
  • A short word for describing “the entire world of Twitter”.
• “Tweetup”:
  • A short word for describing “an in-person meeting of people that network on Twitter”.