What is Twitter and why is dorsetforyou.com using it?
In short, Twitter is a service on the internet which lets you keep in touch with people. It simply asks you, 'What are you doing?' You keep in touch with people by 'following' them, and if they follow you back, you can tell them what you are doing by writing short statements (otherwise known as 'tweets') that all of your followers will see.
What is a tweet?
A tweet is a short message that is up to 140 characters long. It could contain links to other web pages that might be interesting, or it might contain links to pictures, or information a company might wish to pass on to people.
How do I follow someone?
When you see someone on Twitter who you would like to keep in touch with, you can click on a grey box under their picture that says 'follow'. This means that whenever they tweet, you will be shown what they say on your own Twitter homepage. If they follow you, then whatever you tweet will in turn appear on their Twitter homepage.
So who uses it?
Twitter is not only used by everyday people from all over the world, but by businesses, news organisations, celebrities, and yes, even councils! You might have heard about Stephen Fry tweeting from his phone whilst being stuck in a lift, and he could do this because you don't have to be at your computer to use Twitter, you can do it from most mobile phones too. For example when one of our team was stuck in snow on the Ridgeway, they tweeted to us, and we tweeted to our followers about the obstruction.
People on Twitter have a user name, starting with an '@' symbol. So for example, we are known as @Dorsetforyou and Stephen Fry is known as @StephenFry - it's all quite simple really!
What do people use it for?
Generally, people use Twitter to keep in touch with their friends, to tell them about where they are and what they're doing. Businesses use it to keep in touch with their customers, to give them up-to-the-minute information about the company and often any products they want to promote.
Dorsetforyou.com is using Twitter to
- Keep residents up to date with local news
- Inform residents about school/road closures (useful in snowy weather!) or other timely information
- Advertise current job vacancies
- Promote upcoming local events
- Engage with our 'followers' in a friendly, instant way
How will it work for me?
When you log in, you will see a webpage which shows all of the most recent tweets from the people or organisations you are following. So if you are following dorsetforyou.com (@DorsetForYou) and BBC News (@BBCNews), you will see a list of the latest BBC News headlines, mixed in with the latest from the dorsetforyou.com team. It might look something like this:
Is it hard to use?
Twitter is not hard to use at all. It is new, so it might take you a little while to find your feet, but it is like riding a bike, once you know your way around it, it just comes naturally.
Have a look around, don't forget to visit our Twitter page (and to follow us!) and if you have any questions about how we are using it at all, please drop us a tweet, an email, or a phone call. If you do want to tweet to us, all you need to do is log in, begin your tweet with @dorsetforyou and we will see it, don't hesitate to say hello!
