Creating a Twitter Account

• 1). Go to the Twitter homepage and click the "Sign Up" button.
  
  
• 2). Enter a full name, username, password and email address. The full name can be yours or an alias; it does not need to be unique. The username can be anything you want, as long as it is not already in use by someone else. The password must be at least six characters long; make it longer for added security. The email address must be a real one that you can check.
  
  
• 3). Deselect the box marked "Let others find me by my email address" if you do not want people to be able to identify your Twitter identity based on your email address. If you prefer to make it easier for people to connect with you on Twitter, leave the box selected. Then click "Create my account."
  
  
• 4). Click the green "Follow" buttons next to any of the accounts Twitter suggests that you would like to follow, then click "Next Step: Friends."
  
  
• 5). Search for users you want to follow by entering their names into the search box at the top of the page and clicking "Search" one at a time. Click the "Follow" button next to any users you want to follow. This step is entirely optional. When finished, click the "Back to: Friends" button at the bottom of the page.
  
  
• 6). Click any of the external account buttons you want to integrate with Twitter. For example, if you want to find out whether any of your Gmail contacts are on Twitter and follow some or all of them, click the "Gmail" button. This step and the next one are optional; click "Skip Import" at the bottom of the page if you do not want to do this, then skip to the next section of this article.
  
  
• 7). Enter your external account username and password, then click "Grant access." Click "Follow all" or selectively follow your external account contacts by clicking the "Follow" buttons next to their names. Then click the "Finish" button at the bottom of the page.
  
  

Setting Up a Twitter Profile

• 1). Go to the Twitter homepage and click the "Sign in" button at the upper-right corner of the page. Enter your Twitter username and password and click "Sign in."
  
  
• 2). Click your username at the top-right corner of the page and select "Settings."
  
  
• 3). Select your time zone from the "Time Zone" drop-down box near the middle of the page.
  
  
• 4). Click the "Profile" tab near the top of the page. Enter your location, a website URL and a short bio in their labeled boxes. These are all optional. Your location can be anything (e.g., "Boston," "USA" or "Somewhere Out There"). The website must be preceded by "http://". The bio can contain 160 characters or fewer.
  
  
• 5). Click the "Change image" button near the top of the page. Then click "Choose file," browse for an image you want to upload from your hard disk as your Twitter avatar and click "Open." The image can be a .jpg, .gif or .png and its files size must be 700k or smaller. Click "Save."
  
  

Tweeting

• 1). Go to the Twitter homepage and click the "Sign in" button at the upper-right corner of the page. Enter your Twitter username and password and click "Sign in."
  
  
• 2). Type a message of 140 characters or less in the "What's happening?" box at the top of the page. Characters are letters, punctuation, symbols or spaces. You may include links preceded by "http://". Then click the "Tweet" button. This updates your Twitter status, which appears on your Twitter profile page and in the timelines of any Twitter users following you.
  
  
• 3). Enter "@" in the "What's happening?" box immediately followed by a Twitter username (no spaces) to publicly address a particular Twitter user. This is called an "at-reply" or "mention." Click "Tweet."
  
  
• 4). Click the "Message" button while viewing any Twitter user's profile to send him a direct private message. The message must be 140 characters or fewer as with public tweets, and you must already be following each other. Click "Send."
  
  
• 5). Click the "Retweet" button on any tweet you see on Twitter to copy the tweet to your own followers. Confirm that you want to retweet the tweet by clicking "Retweet" in the confirmation popup.