How to use Twitter,and explain what it means to retweet ?

[Shaqueena Gill]

I am a new member of twitter and i know the basics but it gets confusing with all of the @RT ....whatever please explain and give examples

[Rebecca Spencer]

Re tweet means to copy and forward someone else's status as your own

[wdaniel84]

im also new and just getting the hang of it. re-tweet means to tweet something that has already been tweeted before that you want to share with your friends and followers as your own.

so for example: if i tweeted "someone answer my question on yahoo answers" you could re-tweet is so that your followers can see it. does that make sense? another example, a celeb you're following gets married, if one of your followers likes this celeb, re-tweet so they have that story on their wall as well.

the deal with the @ is for when you want to refer someone in you tweet (known as a "mention") and your tweet will go directly to them. example if i said "I just answered your question on yahoo answers @ShaqueenaGill" twitter will notify you that you have been "mentioned" in a tweet

im still gettin to grips with it though. there's hashtags (#) which relate to subjects - so if i tweeted "I wonder whats gonna happen with Whitney #eastenders, not only would this appear on your profile but if you clicked in the search bar for tweets and typed eastenders, your tweet would appear on the list.