WEB SERVICES - ONLINE COMMUNITIES - 22.11.2019

Make better use of Twitter

On Twitter, it’s often difficult to find your way in the never-ending flow of tweets, which range from banal to very interesting. How do you make Twitter a useful and manageable source of information?

Be selective in who you follow

Twitter is only as useful as the people or companies that you follow, so use the search field at the top and strictly limit yourself to those people who really interest you. For inspiration, check out who these people are following themselves. Note. As you follow more Twitter users, it will make new suggestions.

Read tweets chronologically

If you use it to stay informed, keep in mind that Twitter by default does not show the latest tweets, but the ones that are most relevant according to its algorithms.

Tip 1. If you want to organise your feed in a chronological order, tap on the “sparkle” icon at the top right of your homepage and choose See Latest Tweets .

Tip 2. In the search results, it’s the most frequently tweeted or liked tweets that are shown at the top of the list. If you want the latest tweets at the top, click the Latest tab.

Manage your Twitter feed

If you follow a large number of people or companies, your feed will quickly become cluttered. It’s better to follow specific people or companies in a more targeted way by putting them in a Twitter List, whose tweets you can view separately, e.g. a list of competing companies, your favourite musicians, etc.

Click on the Lists icon (sixth left under the Twitter bird) and then on Create a New List . Now go to a Twitter user, click on their profile and then on the three dots at the top. You can now add or remove them from any of your lists.

You can also launch a Twitter search, e.g. #climate change, and specify in the results that you want to save the search: click on the “overflow” icon (the three vertical dots) and choose Save . If you subsequently perform another search, you will see that you can select any of your Saved Searches .

Tip. If you want to find out what someone is tweeting without you becoming a real follower, enter the search from:username.

If you want to keep a tweet, you can like it, but then others will know this, and on your profile page they can see everything you’ve liked. If you don’t want this, bookmark the tweet instead: press the Share button at the bottom right and choose Add Tweet to Bookmarks . In this way you can save the tweet without anyone knowing.

Block annoying users

Did you get unwelcome reactions to your tweet? Avoid other toxic responses by completely blocking this account. Choose Block [username] from the drop-down menu at the top right of the tweet.

Tip. A less drastic option is Muting the profile. If you have muted someone, you will no longer see their tweets in your Twitter feed, but they can still send you a Direct Message.

App

If you’re using the Twitter app on your smartphone, it will be constantly be retrieving new tweets, even when you’re not using the app. If you don’t want this, swipe to the right from the left side of the app, choose Settings and Privacy and uncheck the Sync Data option in Data Usage . From now on all you have to do is swipe down in the app to retrieve the latest tweets manually.

Be very selective in who you follow on Twitter, create lists of tweets that you can view separately, save your frequent searches, and block people so as to prevent them from flooding you with toxic responses.

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