A number of months ago I signed up for Twitter, at first I felt lost in an ocean of tweets..then one of my tweets was even quoted in the New York times (yea , I was one of those who welcomed Oprah to Twitter and well my tweet made the paper). Then I thought I can master this. I feel I have. Twitter works for me.

Now on Monday night here I went to Halifax Tweet Up with the #halifaxchicks. What a great bunch of women! Now some of them are newbies to twitter, didn’t know what a hashtag or a retweet are so I promised a little lesson on my blog today. So girls this post is dedicated to you! Now on Monday night why did hashtags and retweets become so important. Well the #halifaxchicks are trying to raise $10,000 to help buy new diagnostic equipment for a new state of the art breast health centre here in the Maritimes. We are participating in an event called Bust a Move. We are raising funds, havings our buns, and maybe even breaking 2 world records, we shall see.

So what are the basics for a Twitter newbie? So what is with the lingo?

First the first 5 must dos:

1. Get an avatar up,nothing says newbie more then a blank avatar..

2. Fill out the bio, tell us who you are, why we want follow you.

3.Customize your background, there are many free sites that help you do this. To name a few free ones you can use  Twitter Backgrounds, Twitbacks, and Twitter Gallery.

4. For me this was to download Tweetdeck. I know have over 1,300 followers and I follow just as many. How do I organize them. In Tweetdeck I have lists. RLF( my real life buds), Mommy Bloggers, Social Media, Frugal, Superstars, and now Halifax Chicks.

5. Tweet! and not just what you are eating or where you are at, mix it up, share a link (make sure you shorten it using one of the great shortening tools, if you are using Tweetdeck this is automatic), pass on useful info, most importantly be you.

Now what is with the important lingo and what does it mean for you and for me.

Tweeps- are people who use Twitter me and you

Hashtags- are used to keep track do of discussions, have you ever seen a tweet with a # in it?, that signifys the want for discussion. For us Halifax chicks we use #halifaxchicks. If you want to follow a hashtag conversation you can put #(the topic) into search and then follow along. I do this on tweet deck right now. For us Halifax girls the important two right now are #halifaxchicks and #bustamove. If you want your tweet to be part of the conversation, add the hashtag.

Retweets-you will often see a RT at the begining of a tweet this means some one is passing on a tweet they thought useful. If you want to do the same. They copy and paste and put RT at the begining to give proper credit. In Tweetdeck you simply click on there avatar and then the arrow and hit send.I like to retweet. If you see RT PLZ, you are being asked if you can retweet, sometimes I do and sometimes I dont.

These are the basics that have helped Twitter work for me. There is so much more too learn. Come back on Tuesday as I have decided to post a techy Tuesday post where I will talk about Social media, and other techy topics.

Now I am off to see what works elsewhere. Most important what works for We are that Family who is celebrating there 2nd year online..I am so glad they are part of my online community.

As  I mentioned Bust a Move at the beginning of this post, if you can help women in the Maritimes get a much needed state of the art Breast Diagnostic Center my personal donation page is here and I have blogged about it here.