Tuit – Tweet

What is a Tweet or X

Twitter, currently X, is a social network designed for its users to engage in microblogging, meaning posting short text entries known as tweets. These initially had a limit of 140 characters, but today, users can create tweet threads, linking multiple tweets together to tell a connected story.

Microblogging on Twitter now features text content where users can also add their own or others’ videos and images, GIFs, and web links. They can also post content embedded from other platforms like Vine.

Users can also share tweets from others, a practice known as retweeting.

This social network also allows individuals to publish and follow hashtags, which are keywords identified by preceding the word with a hashtag symbol (#). Commercially, this can generate data on the use of keywords a company wants to position, track the number of mentions, retweets or RTs, and gauge the number of “Favs” (marking a tweet as a favorite), broadly identifying the interactions generated by content on this platform.

Why X Is So Popular

X’s big appeal is its scan-friendly nature. You can track hundreds of engaging users and read their content at a glance, which is ideal for those needing quick information, especially during brief feed checks.

The platform employs a purposeful message size restriction to maintain its scan-friendly appeal: each post is limited to 280 characters or less. This cap encourages concise and clever language use, making tweets easy to scan and challenging to write. The original 140-character limit made Twitter a popular social tool.

X as a Form of Amateur News Reporting

Among its various uses, X serves as a medium for learning about the world through others’ perspectives.

Posts might originate from individuals in Thailand during floods, a soldier cousin in Afghanistan sharing war experiences, a traveling sister in Europe documenting her discoveries, or a rugby friend tweeting from the Rugby World Cup. These microbloggers act as mini-journalists, with X providing a platform for their constant updates from laptops and smartphones.

X as a Marketing Tool

Thousands utilize social media to promote recruitment services, consulting businesses, and retail stores, and it’s effective.

Today’s internet-savvy users have grown weary of TV ads. They prefer quick, less intrusive advertising that can be easily turned on or off. X fits this bill; mastering the nuances of tweeting can yield impressive advertising outcomes on platforms like this.

X as a Social Messaging Tool

X, while a form of social media, transcends mere instant messaging. It’s about discovering interesting people globally, building a following interested in you and your work or hobbies, and providing these followers with valuable knowledge daily.

It also integrates well with other social tools like Instagram, Snapchat, and Messenger. For instance, to share a liked post on your Instagram Story, expand it, tap the Share icon, and select Instagram Stories. The item then becomes part of your Instagram Story.

Anatomy of a Tweet

The fundamental element of a tweet is the text. Now you can express yourself with 4000 characters.

From 2017 to 2023 the total lenght was 280 characters. Initially, the limit was 140, but Twitter extended it in 2017. However, conciseness remains the defining feature of this network.

• Besides text, a tweet can include:
• Links. Each link counts as 23 characters, regardless of its actual length.
• Up to 4 images, a GIF, or a video.
• Tweets also display information about their origin, found at the bottom. Examples include “Twitter for iPhone,” “Twitter for Android,” or “Twitter for Web.”
• In some cases, the source of a tweet may be a third-party application, like Hootsuite. These applications are designed to manage and schedule tweets, oversee marketing campaign results, provide customer support, or filter users based on different characteristics.

Types of Tweets

A tweet is a message posted on the social network Twitter, containing texts, images, a GIF, or a video. The author can view it on their profile page and timeline, and any following person can see it on their timeline. Under other circumstances, it is only viewable if one visits the author’s profile.

There are various types of tweets:

Mentions

• A mention is used to name another Twitter user, preceded by an at symbol (@).
• The recipient learns of the mention via the Notifications tab, which is private and not viewable by other users. However, the mention can be seen in the timeline if one follows the recipient.
• People following the user sending a mention will see it on their timeline.

Replies

• Replies are used to respond to another person’s tweet.
• Replies can be viewed on the profile page.
• The recipient of a reply sees it in their Notifications tab. Others, if they follow the sender, can also see it on their timeline.
• Those who follow both parties will see the reply in their timeline.

Retweets

• This is when one publishes a tweet that is not originally theirs but of someone else’s, indicating an interest in sharing it with their followers.
• Twitter’s recent change allows users to retweet their own tweets or those of others.
• The appearance remains the same, except for the retweet icon and the name of the person who retweeted it.
• Those who follow the retweeter can see it, even if they don’t follow the original poster.
• The original tweet’s author receives a notification if someone retweets their tweet.