Twitter

While known as the pound key on your phone, on Twitter, this symbol is a hashtag, and it’s used in front of other words in a tweet to provide context or to make it easy for users to search for specific topics on Twitter. But be careful not to over-hashtag your tweet, one or two is probably enough.

When you want to “tag” someone in a tweet or direct message on Twitter, you can do so by mentioning them using their Twitter username (like @wscube). Add this mention in and they’ll get a notification that you’ve done so in the “Mentions” section of their account. Essentially, this is used to have conversations with people on Twitter

If you're having a Twitter conversation, one polite way to sign off is to say this, which stands for “bye for now.” It lets the other person know you're signing off and that any further tweets may go unanswered for a period of time.

Forbes defines bots as “a social networking account powered by artificial intelligence.” Bots are different than trolls because they aren’t people -- they’re scripts written by people, waiting to pounce. But every once in a while, you’ll stumble across bots that are created to do some pretty cool stuff.

Just like in email, there’s something to be said for social media etiquette, and “best regards” is another nice, commonly used sign-off when leaving a conversation on Twitter.

Crank tweets are the new prank calls, except in written form. They’re misleading tweets, tweeted on purpose.

A "DM," or "direct message," is a private message between two Twitter users. It’s different than a public @mention because in order to send a DM, the recipient must follow you.

This one's simple enough: It's short for “email me.”

When you 'engage' with another user, you are making conversation on Twitterverse with a string of responses and exchanges.

Your twitter “feed” (HubSpot customers know it as their “Timeline”) is any list of tweets that constantly updates when new tweets that fit the specificed criteria pop up. Your home feed updates every time someone you follow tweets.

#FollowFriday started in January 2009 as a way to recommend other Twitter users to your followers. It happens on Fridays, and you can search Twitter for the hashtag on Fridays to watch the kudos pour in. (Cool tip for HubSpot customers: You can create a “#FollowFriday” stream in Social Inbox of a Contact list and see who your Contacts are recommending to follow.)

A “follower” is someone who follows you on Twitter and sees your updates on their home feed. Just because someone follows you doesn't mean you have to follow them back, the way some other social networks work. But if you want to find some insightful marketers to follow, here’s a helpful list to get you going.

A “hat tip” is usually followed by someone’s Twitter username. Using HT means you aren’t quoting or retweeting them directly, but instead acknowledging that the user gave you the idea for the content you’re tweeting.

This acronym for “in case you missed it” can be used when someone is tweeting about big news or a trending topic a few days after the fact, or they’ve already tweeted about it. Searching “ICYMI” on Twitter is a great way to catch up on what you’ve missed if you’ve been off the Twitter radar for a few days.

When 140 characters is your limit, shortening words is a must. Thus, typing “I don’t know” is sometimes too long to include in a tweet, believe it or not.

You’ll usually see “in my opinion” or “in my humble opinion” when someone wants to agree or disagree with a piece of content they’re sharing. That way, the reader knows it’s opinion, not fact.

This means “modified tweet,” which is a retweet that you had to clip to save space. However, it should still hold the meaning of the original tweet.

“Note to self” is a good way to mark tweets that you want to go back to later. It’s also used when someone is trying to be sarcastic or funny. For instance, I might tweet: "NTS: Pizza is way better cold -- especially when it's for breakfast." (Which we all know is true, of course.)

A "partial retweet" is similar to a modified tweet, but it lets the reader know you’ve taken out some of the original idea of the tweet, either to save space or to add your own two cents.

A retweet is the basic form of currency on Twitter. When you see “RT” in front of a tweet, it means the person found the content valuable enough to share with their followers. If the original tweet is yours, way to go!

Beware! Trolls are people on Twitter who abuse the service by spamming users with off-topic tweets and other erratic behavior. Trolling is a form of internet harassment, so if you think someone is trolling you on Twitter, you can learn how to take action here.

Tweeps are Twitter folks that follow each other from one social network to another. It's not uncommon for the people you're friends with on Facebook to also follow you on Twitter -- they would be your Tweep. It's a Twitter-ized version of "peeps."

Sometimes, aside from posts, you will want to share URLs or websites to your followers. Because tweets are limited to under 140 characters, online marketers have thought of a way to shorten URLs into clickable tags that will allow your posts to be within length restrictions, i.e. URLs that start with bit.l.y, tinyurl or ow.ly.