If you’re new to Twitter, you might not know what the buzz is about. Exactly what is Twitter and what can you expect to see there? How valuable is it to the regular person? There are many benefits to Twitter you might not expect, including support, breaking news, and connections of both a business and personal nature.

Not only is Twitter a micro-blogging platform for people to interact within 140 characters, it is a hotbed of information, breaking news, and plain, old-fashioned gossip. People from all walks of life populate Twitter, offering opinions and snippets from their lives to which other people can relate. Twitter can alleviate boredom, inform, and unite in a way that is unprecedented. Twitter is very similar to the beginnings of IRC or AOL chat, but it connects people in a way that is unique.

If you’re a single mom and need information on schools in a new district, you can find someone who can help you find what you need. A student writing a paper for an important class can find people who can help find links to facts. Writers, crafters, artists, musicians, can build a following or join a group that shares similar interests. And breaking news often finds its way to Twitter before it even reaches the mainstream media.

How is this possible? The accessibility of Twitter is key, as is the large audience. Although it has proven difficult to get an accurate count of active Twitter users, most counts range to over 2.5 million Twitter users to date. That’s a lot of brains to pick, a lot of experience to tap, and a lot of information on which to draw. New applications for mobile phones make Twitter even more accessible, and often what happens on the street is recorded first on Twitter.

For instance, the Iranian election was followed closely on Twitter, and when the Iranian government tried to shut down information from that country, their efforts were stymied by witnesses able to access Twitter and communicate the events through words and pictures. The globe is not as tiny as it was before Twitter came on the scene.

Celebrity use by the famous such as Oprah, Ashton Kutcher, and Shaq O’Neill have also brought Twitter to major attention. People don’t want to feel isolated, and with the mobility of the American population and waning of local neighborhoods, Twitter has become an interesting substitute in many ways. Twitter even reaches across borders to bring opinions, news, and reflections from other cultures.

Although skeptics in the beginning thought Twitter was just a passing fad, since launched publicly in July of 2007, it has shown no signs of slowing down. It’s difficult to predict the future of any social networking phenomenon, but it will be interesting to see how Twitter evolves with its users and what the future holds in store.

Once you become familiar with the Twitter interface and have acquired a following, it’s easy to become comfortable with chatting to other people and being friendly. For the most part – this is a good way to make and maintain several great connections. However with every social media platform there are a few out there that will stop at nothing to use and abuse your kindness for profit or just shear malice.

1. For business purposes, you may want to list your physical address on your Twitter profile, or make it available as a link. However, it is not advised you do this for your personal address. If it is important for people to get a hold of you for whatever reason, it’s better to provide a post office box number. Remember, while you have control of whom you follow on Twitter and who follows you, you don’t have control over who sees your profile.
2. Twitter is vast, with a network that reaches wide. If you are planning a vacation, use Twitter to gush about it or post pictures when you return. Divulging times and dates when you will be away from your home or business is asking for trouble from unscrupulous people who may make you a target from the information they glean from your Twitter stream. If you need to maintain an active feed set up automated Tweets when you’re away so it looks like you’re still active in the community.
3. If you have not protected your Twitter updates, it means that everything you Tweet is seen on a public timeline. Anyone who accesses the Twitter homepage can then view your Tweets, so keep personal information you wish to be private to yourself, or protect your updates so only the people you accept as fellow Tweeters can see your postings.
4. Do not give out your Twitter password. If you have delegated Twitter duties to another person in the case of a business, make sure they are instructed also to not give out the password to the Twitter account, and change the password often. Giving out a Twitter password is like giving someone the key to your front door, so be just as careful.
5. There are a plethora of viruses, and Trojans out there just waiting for you to click on a Twitter link to infest your computer. Keep your virus program up-to-date and run it daily. The best advice is to not click on a link from someone with whom you’re not familiar, and don’t post links to Twitter that you have not checked out yourself. If you receive a link in a direct message, unless it’s from your someone you trust, resist the temptation to click on it.

Common sense will take you a long way toward protecting yourself on Twitter. As with most things, the more familiar you become with Twitter the more comfortable you become, but this is the internet, after all. Utilizing the above Twitter safety tips will insure both a pleasant and profitable Twitter experience.