Twitter masterclass: Learning the basics

Your first tweet

Now the important bit: tweeting! You'll be presented with this box, in which you type your tweets. As you type, the counter in the top right counts down how many characters you have left. While it asks 'What are you doing?' you don't have to answer that question; it's more of a starting point to get you going. We'll look at some of the different ways to tweet in part two.

Don't worry too much about a devastatingly witty first tweet: most people's are along the lines of 'So what's this twitter thing all about?'.

Hit update, and bang! Your tweet appears. Hover your mouse anywhere over the tweet, and you'll see a star and a trashcan icon appear on the right. These allow you to save that tweet as a favourite, or delete it.