What is Twitter?

Twitter helps people communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent, 140 character messages. Choose whose messages you want to receive and how you want to receive them, or search all Twitter updates to see what people are talking about.

What is following?

Following someone on Twitter means getting their updates in your personal timeline.  If you follow Poshy, you'll get her updates on your homepage when you log in, or on your phone if you've added it.  Your follower/following stats are listed on your profile page, and if you follow someone, they can send you private tweets, called direct messages, too. 

See who follow you on your followers page, and make changes to who you follow on your following page.

Do you follow me? (What are followers?)

Followers are people who receive your tweets.  If you follow someone, you're their follower-- you receive their tweets in your homepage.  If someone follows you, they're your follower-- they'll receive your tweets in their home page, phone, or any application (like Tweetie, Twitterberry, etc.) they use.  

Following is not like friend requests on social networking sites

Unlike most social networks, following on Twitter isn't mutual.  In other words, someone who thinks you're interesting can follow you, and you don't have to approve, or follow back. Deciding to follow back and changing your mind later is fine- just visit the person's profile page and un-follow; Twitter doesn't notify when you unfollow someone. 

If you want to approve who follows your tweets, you can- just protect your account.  The same rules apply- you can approve followers, but you don't have to follow back.  If you change your mind, visit your following page, and remove them.

How do I follow someone?

Twitter is flexible-- you can follow people in a variety of ways. You can follow someone from:

The web

Click "follow" under any profile picture on Twitter. 

If an account is protected, the owner will have approve your follow request before you'll receive their tweets.  Import your contacts from your address book to find friends already using Twitter, or invite friends who aren't on Twitter yet.

SMS/text message

Send follow username in a text message to Twitter to start following someone from your phone. For example: follow jymminie

Hint: when you add your phone number to Twitter, we'll tell you give you a phone number to text.

Mobile web

If you have a mobile web browser, use m.twitter.com to follow others, just as you would on the regular web.

If you need to use the full featured site, just view Twitter in Standard view.

A3rd Party Applications

Follow from any 3rd party application that supports it.  Tweetie, for example:

support following, un-following, and all other Twitter features.  Pick the methods that work best for you, and tweet on the go.  

You might ask yourself...

Can I restrict who follows me, or sees my updates?
Yes: protect your profile.  Protecting your profile means everyone who wants to follow you submits a request for your approval. Only approved followers can see your Twitter updates, which will not appear in search engines.

Once I start following someone, can I stop?
Yes. Visit the profile page of the person you want to stop following, click the following button to expose the drop down box, and click "remove." Twitter does not notify you when someone has stopped following you.

I don't want a particular person to get my updates, but I don't want to protect my profile.
When all else fails, you can block someone from following you. Look for the block link in the sidebar of the profile page.