OK, so you are now an official member of the Twitter community. Now what??? Well, as I said before, we are learning this thing called Twitter together, so patience may be required.
But nothing says you can’t have some fun along the way! Unfortunately, the fun will only come after you get through this next step of choosing your Twitter settings. I’ll talk you through the process, here we go:
The first thing you have to do is to set up your Twitter profile.
On the top of your Twitter profile page, it says Settings. Click on that.
You will see several tabs.
Click the Account tab. You can now choose your user name and write a short bio. I mean really short. Can you describe yourself in 160 words or less? Now is your chance to find out. This is how you will be represented on Twitter to friends and strangers alike, so make sure you like how it sounds.
Notifications
Now click the Notices tab.
There is a list of options for email notifications, as well as one somewhat confusing option called @replies. This option determines which information you wish to see on what I call the Twitter news feed - all those real-time updates I was telling you about earlier.
Remember how we discussed that on Twitter you choose to follow various people? Well, here you decide if you want to receive just the updates of the people you are following, or their replies to other people as well.
I found it easiest to learn Twitter using the “no @ replies” option. It means that I see the updates posted by the people that I am following, but not their replies to other people, which can be confusing since you are only seeing one side of the conversation. It’s like hearing one side of a phone conversation – intriguing at first, but ultimately annoying.
(Your other options are choosing “@replies to the people I’m following“, in which you see the replies of the people you are following to other people you are also following, and “@all replies“, in which you see the replies of the people you are following to anyone, whether you are following them or not. Once you get the hang of Twitter, you can choose one of these options to get into the full Twitter experience).
Picture and Design
Here is where you customize how you want your Twitter pages to look.
The Picture tab lets you upload a profile picture – this is how you will appear in the Twitter universe, so choose wisely.
Click the browse button and navigate through the files on your computer to find a photo that you like (or that doesn’t make you cringe too much) and choose “open“. When the photo appears on the Twitter page, click “save“.
The Design tab lets you customize the look of the pages. Click on each of the squares to see different designs. When you find one that you like, click “save changes” at the bottom of the page.
GEEK TIP: You can even change the colors of each element of the design selected by clicking on the “change design colors” button, and then playing around with the colors for each of the elements (font, sidebar, etc). Remember to always hit “save changes“.
You can also upload your own original photo to use as your Twitter background by clicking the “change background image” button and then choosing “browse“. Navigate through your computer files until you find the picture that you want (make sure you own the rights) and click “open”. It will upload to Twitter – check off “tile background” if you want the picture repeated throughout the page, and then “save changes“. You now have your own unique Twitter page wallpaper!
The Mobile tab is about how to use Twitter on your mobile phone. I don’t really understand what they are talking about on this page yet, so let’s skip it for now.
OK, you’re doing great!
You are all set up for Twitter… now it’s time to find some people to follow!
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