The Chinese version of Twitter is here, 10 steps to get started with new social media

When I used to recommend Twitter on my computer playthings, some of my friends were puzzled about not being able to get started on Twitter, mainly because the previous Twitter website only had an English interface. After launching the community translation project, Twitter today finally launched Traditional Chinese and Simplified Chinese versions for Chinese users. Users from Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau and other places can see Twitter in Traditional Chinese when they log in and register on Twitter.

Because Twitter’s translation adopts a community editor voting system, interested friends can help improve the content through the "Twitter Translation Center". At present, the Chinese language level of the entire interface is very high. As for whether some terms are liked or not, the follow-up will be You can continue to improve it through the community power of the Translation Center.

In fact, several well-known social networking sites have unique positioning. If Facebook is the closest communication center for the circle of friends, then Twitter is the fastest information dissemination center. The focus of Twitter’s attention is on "information." The meaning of the relationship network between users in Twitter is: "information reporting and dissemination channels." Twitter has established a form of "metanews" for the world. You can go here Pay attention to the most simple, least modified, but most sincere and real-time information content.

I really think you should use Twitter.

In terms of content, due to the long-term influence of the habits of community users, the current mainstream of Twitter messages is mostly similar to short articles of "reporting nature", whether it is a news event happening around, reposting important news, promoting personal knowledge and interests, or For comments on personal opinions, there are more informative content you can follow on Twitter.

In terms of browsing format, Twitter has the most concise design, which is very helpful for the flow and reading of messages, and through the immediate retweeting and replying mechanism, good messages can be spread to more social circles as soon as possible. , In addition, Twitter also has enough message filtering functions.

Comprehensive content and formal characteristics, Twitter is like a new media center. According to the characteristics of the community you follow, you can effectively read the latest news of interest in this media center every day, and obtain multiple information In terms of distribution, Twitter's effect is significantly better than other social networking sites.

The advantages of Twitter and how to make good use of Twitter, you can refer to the two articles I wrote before:

You can not use Twitter, but you have to know how to mine Twitter

Twitter is five years old, and five social real-time information tracking tools that make me love to use Twitter even more

Next, I imagine the needs of users who have just started using the Chinese version of Twitter, including several issues that may be of concern, and how to use Twitter more quickly. With the built-in functions of Twitter as the main axis, I will help you organize an article to get started with the Chinese version of Twitter. 10-step process.

01. Positioning of information disseminators

Just like what I discussed in the "Nine Truths of Life in the Google+ Social Circle", Twitter is more like a channel for information dissemination than a dating site.

A Twitter user can play two roles: "Publisher" and "Communicator". Compared with talking about the trivial matters of your own life (of course, it is not impossible), Twitter has more tools to allow you to participate in a world. In the information dissemination network with both localization, you can be the source of information and the hub of transmission.

Most Twitter users do not want to chat when they post a message, but to spread some kind of news, ideas, knowledge or interest. They assume that their readers are the entire network! Therefore, there is no so-called privacy setting function for a single message in Twitter. Basically, your message is born for public dissemination.

Of course, if you want to hide the content of the messages you post because of professional confidentiality requirements and only allow users you allow to see, then you can check "Protect my tweets" in "Settings".

At this time, your consent must be obtained before others want to follow your messages, and the messages you post in the future will only be seen by those who you allow to follow, and cannot be directly retweeted.

02. Build your intelligence network: Follow (Follow)

In order to "participate" in such an information dissemination system, we must "follow" other information disseminators.

We can decide for ourselves who we want to "follow" to build the intelligence network we need. "Following" is unilateral. As long as I am interested in the information posted by this person, I can follow him and immediately see all his updates on my timeline without his consent (unless he I kept my account confidential in advance).

You must pay attention to others in order to get the content, which should be understood by everyone.

But how do we pay attention to high-quality content in the first place? At this time, you can use the "Recommended Follower" at the top of the Twitter page, where you will be recommended to users that you may be interested in, there are also so-called celebrity lists (browsing interesting), or you can use your email account to find friends.

You can also refer to the "Topsy Experts search engine for Twitter experts in various fields, who is worth your follow?" I wrote before to find experts on Twitter, or use the search function in Twitter "Recommended Follow" to find relevant keywords "Information communicator".

Of course, you can even follow me directly on Twitter

03. Dialogue and dissemination: reply, retweet and private message

Twitter can’t extend a deep and sometimes digressive discussion thread for a message like Pulang or Google+. In other words, Twitter uses another form to express the atmosphere of the conversation.

First of all, for each Follow message, we can click "Reply" to directly reply to our opinions or thoughts to the sender. In addition, we can click "Retweet" to directly forward valuable messages for publication.

A very important point here is that "reply" and "retweet" are equivalent to new messages posted by yourself, and they are addressed to all those who follow you on Twitter.

Of course, Twitter can still be used as one of the channels for private contact, that is, it can post private messages to individuals.

Just click on the "message" page at the top of the Twitter website to send secret content to your designated users. I myself use this feature to interact with some netizens who want to get in touch.

But the most common (because you can't see private messages) is that every reply or retweet is equivalent to a new tweet.

The intention of this design also returns to the previously mentioned "information disseminator" positioning. The essence of conversation in Twitter is dissemination, which is a way to promote the faster dissemination of information, and to "enrich" the content of the message during dissemination, and " Mentions" information source.

The so-called "rich" means that I can add to the original message in my reply, adding my own opinions or more information. The so-called "mention" is to let others see the people related to this message through "@User".

04. Key message bookmarks: favorites

Now that the media nature of Twitter's intelligence network has been repeatedly emphasized, it is not surprising that Twitter has the so-called bookmark function.

Seeing the information that you feel is valuable and worthy of being temporarily picked up from the fast-moving information torrent, you can use "Favorites" to collect them, and you can view them in the favorite list of your personal files in the future.

In the so-called intelligence management, reading later is one of the most important means.

05. Movie image browsing

The information on the Twitter timeline is mainly text and links, keeping it the most concise, but you can quickly browse the most information at a time.

When we see the important message, we can click on the message itself, and then the detailed browsing screen will be opened on the right side of the page, where we can see the communication process of this message (who replied, retweeted this message) .

In addition, if it is a supported video or photo link, you can also see the multimedia content directly on the right. This design allows us to filter out the titles we are interested in first, and then look at the detailed content, which is the most efficient.

06. Information filtering: Retweet and classified list by others

All the messages of the people you follow will appear in the timeline. Slowly, the information updates on the timeline may become faster and more and more, but you may not have time to read so much information.

At this time, the information filtering function is needed.

In Twitter, we can open the [Retweet]-[Reposted by others] page on the homepage, where we use the social filtering mechanism to help us select the content first, and we directly browse these that have been recognized by others ( Retweet) message.

In addition to relying on others to help filter, we can also build our own classified watch list.

For example, I follow a total of more than a thousand people, but 100 of them are the most important objects of concern to me, then I can add them to an exclusive list created by myself. If I don’t have time to look at the timeline, this classified list can be Make sure I see the most important message.

Regarding the Twitter List (list) function, I have published two articles on "How Twitter List + HootSuite Obtain Effective Internet Instant Messages in the Noise of the People" and "The Method of Intelligence Classification: One Step More Information Filtering, Say Goodbye to the Troubles of Information Explosion" There are detailed explanations, welcome to reference.

What I have to say is that the decision-making power of information has always been in the hands of users. Only by making good use of classification and filtering can we more effectively grasp the information that belongs to them.

07. Chinese keyword search subscription

At present, the search results for Chinese content in Twitter have improved a lot, and Chinese content can be searched very effectively.

As long as you enter keywords in the search field at the top of the Twitter website, you can search for relevant results. And if you want to keep track of the related information of a certain keyword, just click "Save Search Results" at this time to keep track.

It has been constantly emphasized that Twitter is currently the most effective channel for information dissemination, so you can search for a lot of the latest and most critical content that is generally not found on Twitter, as long as you make good use of search (also refer to: Topsy according to dissemination Impact optimization Twitter real-time search ranking, excellent Chinese query).

08. Who is following you?

If you keep a public account on Twitter, then anyone can follow you without your consent. These users who are following you can be viewed through the "Followers" page.

Don't ask me: "What if I want to send a message only to my lover, but not to my wife?" This is not what Twitter wants to do for you.

Don’t think it’s strange that many people you don’t know pay attention to you, because this is just the relationship between upstream and downstream in an information dissemination system. You are the upstream (publisher) of some people, and at the same time, you can be the downstream of some people ( Communicator), and then the information can be absorbed by all means.

09. Design a personal page

After understanding the form, content and some basic operations of the previous Twitter, you can probably start using it smoothly, and don't forget to enrich your profile page at this time.

First of all, we can fill in some self-introductions in the "Personal Profile" of "Settings", and then select the layout we like in "Design". If you are interested in being a good "information communicator", then let yourself be attracted The attention of others is also very important.

10. Use App

Finally, Twitter is an "real-time" information dissemination system, that is, after the "stream" of information has passed, it will not reappear (unless others replies and retweets); and more importantly, it often faces what you see with your own eyes. In the news, what users can't bear is the mood of "I want to publish right now."

So in addition to the Twitter web version, making good use of external apps is also a knack for using Twitter.

On Android, iPhone, iPad and other mobile devices, we can all use the official "Twitter" App to instantly browse, publish, and retweet the latest news.

If it is not possible to follow them immediately, we can also connect to "The Tweeted Times" at regular intervals to see the most important messages that have been retweeted and responded to in the range of our attention.