Lots of people like to add things like ♥✩♬♡►♪☺♫ to their tweets for fun, but did you know adding symbols can make your tweets shorter and easier to read too?

Or that there are over 109,000 symbols available? Or that the Wall Street Journal uses symbols to add bar charts to its tweets?

Of course, if you’re mainly into the fun side, symbols can also let you write ǝpısdn uʍop or even black out those ██████ words (now that @SamuelLJackson has joined Twitter). But there’s a lot more you can do with symbols than just start a pie fight:
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Dave

Don’t worry, we’ve all made mistakes. And Twitter can be tough to learn!

But some things are easier to excuse than others. You have to make an effort.

One of the easiest ways to learn Twitter is to follow good people and ask them questions. Or read blogs with lots of Twitter tips (like this one).

Keep a real or virtual notepad handy to jot down questions as you go so you won’t forget them later. Then take some time each week to ask folks or do some searches to find the answers.

Got a specific question right now? Be sure to leave a comment in the box below this article—we’d be happy to help! Our first 16 mistakes are for brand new users:

Mistakes 1-16: Mistakes Getting Started Buffer this

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Dave

Two great Twitter heavyweights had a detailed conversation over Twitter a few hours ago about the purpose of Twitter, and where automation fits in.

The way Scott Stratten (@Unmarketing) sees Twitter is for real-time conversation:

However, for Michael Gray (@GrayWolf), Twitter can be more efficient:

By carrying on a live conversation, both showed they valued Twitter as a communication platform, but they differed over to what degree. And, boy, did they differ!
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Dave

Imagine you were alive hundreds of years ago, and wanted to meet the world’s greatest thinkers and hear their thoughts.

If you were independently wealthy, you could devote your life to traveling the world and finding those wise men and women, talking to them and listening to them.

But it would’ve taken you your whole lifetime.

Today, thanks to Twitter, you can find the thoughts of many of the world’s greatest thinkers in art, business, politics, technology – almost any area of human achievement, all at your fingertips. You can see things they’re thinking and saying that never end up in books, nor are they seen or heard anywhere else.

Imagine what it is doing for our brain development to be exposed to the best thoughts of the greatest achievers of today and throughout history!

This is probably the #1 greatest thing about Twitter that too few people take advantage of. But there are four other things I think people misunderstand too…
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Dave

Twitter problems can be very frustrating.

There are far too many of them, far too often, and it’s unclear what you can do to get help. Many people start by asking their friends if they know what is going on, or what can be done.

But the craziest thing of all is that some things about Twitter support are exactly the opposite of what you’d expect!

I’m in my fifth year on Twitter now, and here are some of the crazy things I’ve discovered:

1. Don’t Send A Tweet If You Want Help.
2. The More Times You Ask For Help, The Less You Will Get.
3. Twitter Closes Support Requests Without Reading Them.
4. Twitter Breaks Things On Purpose!
5. Most Suspended Accounts Are Unsuspended If You Ask.
6. Twitter Will Remove Your Tweets From Search.

Ready to learn more?

Everyone knows that Twitter exists to let you send tweets, but what many people don’t know is that you shouldn’t send a tweet when you need help!
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Dave

Twitter CEO Dick Costolo revealed nine stunning new facts about Twitter during an interview at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco just a few hours ago (Monday, October 17.)

1. Twitter Is Growing 300% Faster…Thanks To “Mentor” Apple Buffer this

iOS 5 Integration Made Signups Increase 3x, Costolo said. Signups began jumping on the first day of iOS 5′s availability, October 12.

“Those guys [at Apple] are an amazing partner for us. When they think about products and enhancing products they think about editing them,” Costolo said. “[At Twitter] we’re going to offer simplicity in a world of complexity… they’re a corporate mentor to us.”
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Dave