Introduction to Twitter

X is a free social network on which thousands of people express their thoughts, opinions, tastes, and interests. They also use it to stay informed about everything happening in the world, since X’s primary feature is that it displays information in real time.

The blurbs shared on X are called posts; these are fragments of text that can not exceed 280 characters.

Interacting is simple. After creating an account, you can start following other users to see what they publish, and other people can follow you and see your posts and comments.

Some reasons people use X:

To stay informed, by getting the most important news instantly, in a summarized format.
To share opinions and tastes, by writing about the topics they like, such as sports, music, or politics.
To stay in touch, by communicating with people from all over the world.
To advertise. Companies can send mass messages and share news about their products and services with customers.
To make requests or complaints, by getting in contact with the company’s accounts to receive customer service through this channel.

Let’s go a little deeper:

Every platform has certain terms you must become familiar with in order to understand how it works. In X’s case, there are several words you need to know to make the most of the possibilities it offers.

Author: a person who writes posts and is a user of the X social network.
Post: the short text written by an author on X, a message sent publicly that contains a maximum of 140 characters.
Repost: to share a post made by another user.
Hashtag: a tag for a keyword or phrase with no spaces between characters, preceded by the “#” symbol.
Trending Topic: a topic that is rising in popularity, or what is most talked-about at a given moment on X.
DM or Direct Message: a private message sent to a user that no one else can read.
Follow: when you follow a user, the home page will show you what they publish.
Followers: people who subscribe to your profile to read your opinions or publications.
Lists: is a curated selection of X accounts. Lists allow you to customize, organize and prioritize the posts you see in your timeline.

How The X Homepage Works

Every time you log in to your X account, you see the home page.

This is a space where you can see posts from the people you follow, current trends, the search bar, and other X tools such as your profile and notifications, by clicking on their respective buttons.

Searches, Trends, and Topics on X

Trends are the most popular topics being talked about on the network. You can choose to see topics trending in your city, country, or worldwide.

Topics of the moment will be indicated by hashtags or tags, which are words with a number sign (#) in front of them, that group posts related to a specific topic. For example: #instagood #photooftheday

How to Find Trending Topics

Click on the Explore option on the left side of your window.
Select the Trends option.
The trends you see will depend on your location. The most-mentioned topic will be listed as number 1, and you will see trends up to number 30.

How to Search on X

Go to the X home menu.
Click on the search bar at the top right of your window.

If you want to find someone, type their name or username. For example, search for the user @AlephHolding, and press enter.

In this search bar, you can also search for hashtags or tags.

What Are X Topics?

On X, people talk about a wide array of topics, and the “topics” section allows you to segment these interactions based on the topic they are related to. By selecting a favorite subject, you can connect with everything that happens related to this topic in your city or country.

All you have to do is follow the topic, and X will personalize your experience with those posts, events, and announcements for you to enjoy.