Most people only use the main features of social media networks. Little do they know that this is the ones usually hidden or less easily accessible, that can be the most useful. Twitter is one of the most used social media platform and is great to engage in conversations with people you wouldn't have probably met in real life, at least not that easily, either for personal or professional purposes. The features below will help you discover how to use Twitter to its fullest.
Connect with more people
As many social networks, Twitter gives you the possibility to browse your contacts database from other platforms in order to find people you already know. This feature is often under-used but can turn out to be very effective to find people to connect with, and therefore, get new followers. You access it via the #Discover section (top menu) and then "Find Friends". There you can connect with contacts from your Gmail, Yahoo, AOL or Outlook accounts. Browse also the "Who to follow" section to find suggestions based on your current following.
Follow people's activity
Did you know that Twitter has an "activity feed" similar to Facebook's newsfeed? Twitter's main page let you see what people you follow tweet. How about who they follow, which tweets they liked and what lists they created? All those info are in the "Activity Feed" accessible from the #Discover. It will be very useful to find new people to follow or start discussing with, find interesting lists and engaging tweets.
Favorite
On Twitter, favoriting a tweet is the equivalent of a Facebook "Like." But how often do you use this feature, compared to the posts you regularly like on Facebook? When you "favorite" a tweet, its author gets notified. It's a good way to catch his or her attention. It can be very useful also as a way to bookmark tweets you like or will need to go back to in the future, as you can easily access all your favorite tweets from the "Me" section and then via "Favorites."
Follow trends
Hashtags are very useful to find conversations and people. It's also important to know which one to use in your tweets. As the trending hashtags are the most currently used, it can be useful to add some to your tweets, as long as they are relevant. Depending on which trends you would like to follow and where you are located, you might want to adjust the region set for the trends. From the main page, in the "Trends" box, click on "Change" to select the geographic area wanted.
Search
Like Google or other search engines, Twitter lets you narrow your search for more efficiency. When you read the results of a search, click on "Advanced search" on the right. Then you can narrow by keywords, hashtags, location, people, etc. You can also save any search to go back to it faster in the future.
Lastly, if you are using Twitter on your smartphone, have a look at this improved feature to better follow conversations.