Thread by @drwilding

Quite a few people have joined or rejoined Twitter recently. It's not always the most instinctive thing when you're starting out so you might find some of these things useful in helping you get around or you might prefer to read some other, better Tweets instead.

Either is fine

Starting with a bit of basic navigation. If you click on your profile picture in the top LH corner a lot of navigation is done from there.

And along the bottom the 4 icons take you between HOME - EXPLORE - NOTIFICATIONS and DMs.

it's a good idea to set a profile picture (it doesn't have to be a photo of you) and write a short bio about yourself so that others know what type of stuff you're interested in and so you're not mistaken for a Bot. You can also set a header picture (along the top) if you want to

Your "home" timeline is the default one and where you'll spend most of your time (the Tweets from the accounts you follow will show up in here). If you click on the diamonds in the top RH corner you can switch between 'Top Tweets' and 'Latest Tweets' views.

Latest Tweets puts everything in "reverse chronological" order so most recent Tweets at the top.

Home view (default one) will insert Tweets algorithmically that have had lots of engagement or that people you follow have liked. Idea is to make it easier to find the good stuff

Explore (the magnifying glass icon at the bottom) is the quickest way to catch up on what's happening and see what's trending and also the place you'll find Tweets that have been curated into easy to follow packages - similar categorisation to newspapers for example.

You can choose between "for you" (which is more based around your interests) and "trending" which is more based around general trends in conversation and also go into different sectors like news, sport, fun, ents etc

Next... Topics. This is fairly new and very good. You get to it via the main navigation panel again and the idea is that you follow a topic and you'll then see good Tweets about that topic in your Twitter even if you don't follow the account that Tweeted it.

There are literally thousands of topics to choose from which are under these broad headlines on the left (expand them to see the options). I'm following Birdwatching even though I know nothing about it.

Getting more technical now... Lists are loved by people who use them a lot.

Same navigation panel then select "Lists".

The first thing you have to do is create some lists.
Click "manage members" to add people.
If you set a list to private only you can see it

The best bit about lists is once you've created a list you can then "pin" it to the top of your Twitter so if you swipe to the right you get taken straight to that list.

Click on the pin next to the lists you want to pin (you can do up to 5) and away you go.

Twitter has a dark mode for nighttime or just dark mode people - who knew?

There are 2 ways to get to Dark Mode - via the bottom left hand corner of your navigation panel (just switch it on) or under "Display and sound" which is under "settings" (you can play around with lots of other stuff under settings too).

Anyone still with me? You may have noticed that we haven't actually talked about Tweeting yet. Let's do that now...

Probably the two best bits of advice I've heard about Tweeting are;

1) Twitter is a little less about "look at me" and a little more about "look at this"

2) Write the kind of Tweets you like to read.

But everyone has their own style - do what works best for you

Tweets can of course be up to 280 characters but you can add so many other things to them (pics etc) and add more than one Tweet to make a thread

In general I love threads (not this one) as they help to make much more nuanced points than a character limit for a single Tweet usually allows.

You can of course reply to other peoples Tweets and have a conversation using the button there next to their Tweet. It can be a really good way to get going with Tweeting.

Worth saying too that Dan here is spot on about Norman Price.

You can of course Retweet a Tweet (so your followers see it too) or you can "Quote Tweet" it (or "Retweet with comment" it's the same thing) which is also easy to do if you have something you want to add do it.

We're getting near the end now I promise...

Just a word on "controlling your experience".

You can choose to mute, block or report a Twitter account very easily with a couple of clicks.

I'm obviously using Wolves here for illustrative purposes only. God I miss you Wolves. 💛

You can also mute words - either forever or for a specific period of time - which is a good way to try to avoid spoilers (6am Monday release UK time for Killing Eve? What were they thinking?)

I know that this was all done for iOS and there are some tiny differences on Android & desktop versions but hopefully some of that might be useful anyway.

Anyone fancy a cuppa?