Twitter can be a little intimidating, but it’s not as hard as they make it look. With a little explaining, anybody can utilize a twitter page! Here are a few key things to know about twitter.

Sign up! Head over to twitter.com. All you need is an email and a password.

Most importantly, our twitter handle is @CDL_Life – follow us! We can’t wait to see you there!

You’re going to need a profile picture. It doesn’t even have to be a photo of you, a mugshot of your pet would suffice! You’ll want to be sure that the photo you’ve chosen is 81 x 81 px. When you’ve chosen, and appropriately sized your photo – you’re officially ready to upload it. Here’s how:  Settings > Profile > Picture > Browse > Find the .jpg you want > Upload > Save!

You need to fill out the Profile information! Underneath your newly uploaded profile picture you’ll need to write a little bio. Let your future followers know what you like to do or a little bit about yourself!

What the #? This (#), is a hashtag, the start of a conversation, and the key to communicating on twitter. On the left side of the Home page, you should be able to see something called Trends the topics are going to look #SomethingLikeThis. When you tweet using a hashtag followed by a phrase (without spaces), not only are you tweeting to your followers, you’re tweeting to everyone that’s having a conversation using that phrase. One of the #hashtags that we at @CDL_Life use most often is #cdl. Not only does this get your thoughts noticed and increase your followers, it shows that you understand what twitter is for! It’s mass information for everyone, not just your friends. Many people look at their current city’s #hashtag to simply to see what there is to do – Kansas City’s is #KC!

Why retweet if you’ve already tweeted? Retweeting is repeating what another person has said on twitter. By retweeting, you’re crediting them instead of just repeating them or copying their tweet. This is also really fast, and easy! Hover your mouse over the tweet you’re wanting to retweet. > Select “Retweet” (Between “Favorite” and “Reply” below the tweet).

Don’t just tweet about yourself! As I mentioned before, some people check out their city’s trending topic to find out useful information. So, provide it! Let everybody else know about an event, a great truck stop, or some tasty grub you’ve stumbled upon. – You can alert other drivers of bad things too, like poor road conditions, closings, etc. – (Just don’t tweet and drive!)

Don’t be afraid to follow. Follow anything and everything relevant to your interests! The more people you follow, the more things you’ll be able to see that you can retweet, and the more you’ll know about goings on in your current area, your country, and your world. Plus, people follow you back – follow your followers!

@mentions … @mentions? Yes! Pronounced “at-mentions.” This is how you speak directly to one twitter user. If you wanted to talk to us, you would say @CDL_Life. This is sent to us, but doesn’t appear on our wall unless we retweet it. It could be considered good twitter etiquette to retweet a direct tweet that’s especially funny or interesting, it also makes it apparent that twitter users are talking to you.

Be active. Say something everyday, don’t be afraid to be talkative. Twitter is an enormous conversation!

Stand out! Use the design settings (the same place you changed your profile picture) to change the colors of your twitter page to personalize it. You could stick with the default twitter clouds, twitter offers several unique options, or if you really want to do something special, download a background from somewhere like: www.mytwitterbackgrounds.com or www.twitterbackgroundsgallery.com.

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