Twitter jargon explained ahead of worldwide local Twestivals

Fundraising | 11 Sep 2009

This month the virtual world of Twitter becomes more tangible, as dozens of cities plan ‘Twestivals’.

Between September 10 and 13 twitterers around the globe will attend fundraising events comprising music and entertainment, with all money raised going to charities selected by popular vote on the microblogging site.

There are high expectations for the fundraising potential of the Twestivals following a pilot event in February which raised $250,000 for charity:water from just a fraction of Twitter’s current userbase.

Between February and July the number of Twitter users in the US alone rose from five million to more than 28 million, according to ratings website Quantcast.

For anyone not yet au fait with the Twitter language, PF has put together this Twitter terminology table ...

JARGON	BUSTED
Tweet	A 140-character mini-post, similar to a status update on social networks like Facebook. A ‘re-tweet’ (RT) is when a Twitter user wants to spread or comment on a Tweet and so re-posts the original tweet.
Follow	When one Twitter user decides to receive updates from another which will then appear in their feed
Hashtag	A phrase denoted by a hash symbol, which creates a ‘tag’, allowing groups to be created within Twitter.
Follow Friday	A regular hashtag which appears on Fridays. Twitterers use the hashtag ‘follow Friday’ before listing twitterers they recommend others should follow.
Charity Tuesday	Tuesday’s regular hashtag, twitters use the phrase ‘Charity Tuesday’ to either recommend charities to others or discuss topics affecting civil society.
Twollars	The first attempt to monetise Twitter. Twitter users all have 50 ‘twollars’. They are encouraged to give them to charity and other twitterers as a mark of goodwill or support (eg. Interesting story @pfmagazine. I give you 4 twollars). Charities accumulate Twollars, which businesses are then encouraged to buy from them for real dollars to demonstrate their support. The business can then use them to reward its own followers and visitors to its sites.
Twibbon	A small icon which a twitterer can download to appear on their profile image which denotes support. The most popular use of a Twibbon to date has been the ‘We Love the NHS’ campaign.

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