If you’ve never heard of Twitter before this, we’ll give you a quick guide on how to start. Go to Twitter.com and click on the ‘Get Started – Join!’ button:

On the next screen, you’ll be required to fill in your account details. You must be at least 13 years of age to use Twitter. You can choose a Twitter display name (also called the Twitter Handle). You Twitter url will thus become http://www.twitter.com/your_handle:

You can then check which of your friends are on Twitter from your Yahoo, Gmail, MSN, AOL and Hotmail contacts. This step is very useful in finding your first friends and followers:

If unluckily none of your friends are on Twitter(which is highly unlikely), don’t fret. On the next page, you’ll be offered suggestions to follow some of the popular Twitter users. The likes include Britney Spears, Demi Moore, popular websites like CNN Breaking News, Woot, The New York Times and other celebrities like Lance Armstrong, Evan Williams(CEO, Twitter) and more. We even found Coldplay there.

Click finish and you’ll be taken to your twitter homepage:

On the right hand sidebar you can various statistics on the number of people you’re following, your follower count and your updates. (if you don’t know what an update is, you’ll do so pretty soon) Below it are Twitter’s notifications of various twitter apps and services.

In the lower part of the sidebar, you’ll see the various update management tools like your @replies, direct messages, favorite tweets, everyone(the link to the public timeline) and a mosaic of your followers.

• @replies: Whenever someone replies to your profile on twitter, he does so by @username. The @replies link filters all the @replies you receive to show who’s talking to you
• Direct Messages: Also called DM these are like 140-characters long messages which are delivered to your inbox and which do not form a part of the public timeline. There are private messages.
• Everyone: Everyone link takes you to the public timeline which is a real time display of tweets from around the world.
• Status Updates for devices: Twitter was originally intended to be focused on mobile devices also(which explains the 140-characters limit to some extent). You can configure
• RSS Feeds: You can also configure the RSS feeds for your Twitter account. (Click here if you don’t know what RSS means?)

Now for some profile tweaking: Go to the Settings tab on the top right.

You can now change your profile picture.

You can also change your Twitter Background:

Later this week, we’ll tell you about ways to create your personalized Twitter background and make that awesome first impression.

Once you are set in, you can now find some people or follow the suggested users. People follow you back if they like you(or your updates) and you start building up your community.

Making your first update:

Now you are all set to make your first update.

Type your message(upto 140 characters) and click on update. To send an @reply, type @username and type your message. Alternatively, you’ll notice a small arrow next to the user’s tweet, clicking on it will auto-fill the @reply entry.

How to mark favorite tweets?

Click on the star next to the tweet to mark it as a favorite tweet.(the @reply arrow is just below this star)

How to send a Direct Message(DM)?

Here’s how:

• Click on the Direct Messages link in the sidebar
• It shows the DM inbox and the DM’s you’ve sent
• Choose a user from the drop down list
• Type a message and click send. Its as easy as that.

We have now covered almost all Twitter basics. Coming up later in the week are:

• A glossary of Twitter terms
• Tips on Twitter etiquettes
• How to build and manage a Twitter network
• The truth about Twitter followers
• Loads and loads of Twitter apps and services
• A mammoth list of Twitter articles and resources

We’ve just begun exploring the Twitter phenomenon. Subscribe to our RSS feed or email newsletter for more.

Drop in your comments to show your like(or dislike) for Twitter and how you use it to your advantage. If you were a newcomer, we’ll love to know whether our post was helpful to you.