Yay & Twitter: Help!

Before I start talking about Twitter, I want to excitedly announce that I got the first submission for the Pen Women Flash Fiction Contest! Yay! I hope they start to flood in. If you haven't seen information on this Flash Fiction Contest, you can click the Flash Fiction tab at the top of my blog. I am the Chair for the contest, but am not judging it. Getting that first submission made all the hard work seem worth it!

Also, I attended a lovely Pen Women meeting on Saturday with guest speaker Cynthia Becker, who talked to us about researching for a biography (she wrote about Chipeta, wife of Ute Chief Ouray). I am hoping to pass along some of the helpful information she gave us, probably next Monday. She had great research links and ways to research that will help you with historical accuracy, whether you're writing historical fiction or a biography.

Lastly, I think I've landed on a fun extra for daily posts during the A-to-Z. I'm so excited to try it out! Speaking of the A-to-Z, we hosts are doing "getting to know you" posts throughout the next month-and-a half and answering questions you might find to be unexpected. Arlee Bird, our honorable leader in insanity, posted his on Saturday. Mine isn't until March, but you will find some fun posts from my co-hosts in the meantime.

Moving on to Twitter...

I signed up for Twitter last spring or summer, having received encouragement during the A-to-Z on how helpful it was for writers. I have not really gotten to know it well yet, and have mostly used it to reply to tweets directed at me and to post a link to each post here on the blog.

The problem is that I've been getting contacted more and/or tagged, and I'm not sure how I'm supposed to respond, what the Twitter rules of etiquette are, etc. I'm hoping some of you can help me.

When someone tags you in a "tweet" with the tag #WW what does that mean? Is it just referring people to a Wordless Wednesday-type post? Should I be responding with a thank you, re-tweeting, what? Help!

Also, if someone tags you with the tag #FF what is that for? Follower Friday? What does that mean? Should I be responding with a thank you? Once again, please help!

For my part, I always try to tweet a thank you to anyone who retweets one of my tweets (haha, writing that word over and over is weird). I follow back most who follow me unless it is blatant advertising, completely inappropriate (considering I have a twisted sense of humor, it has to be really inappropriate) or something porny, and I hesitate when it is someone with no tweets, or none that are recent. I also look at their number of followers versus the number they follow. If this is very lopsided and they have a ton of followers but are only following a few, I pretty much assume they intend to delete me after I follow back, so they will not get me as a follower.

If I happen to be on for whatever reason and see something interesting I want to share, I retweet it by clicking "retweet" at the bottom of their post (I specify that because I've since happened across a discussion on whether you should do it that way or whether you should copy the link and do a whole new tweet on it).

I'm trying to learn it because I hate thinking there is some proper way I'm supposed to be responding to various things on there and people who were nice enough to mention me are possibly peeved that I haven't responded appropriately. I'm sure there have been some other manner of tags, though I think #WW and #FF are the major ones I've seen. Is there a resource you might recommend for knowing what various hash-tags mean or would someone kindly tell me about the proper ways to behave in Twitter Land? I don't want to be known as rude.

I imagine I can't be the only one who has no idea what any of this means, so any answers provided in the comments will hopefully help someone other than me, as well.

What do #FF and #WW stand for and how should one respond to them when tagged/mentioned? Do you automatically follow back? If not, what are your specifications for whether you follow someone? Are you in the same boat as me...signed up, but completely clueless?

May you find your Muse.