So you wanna tweet? Great—you're gonna (mostly) love it. Everyone from the President to Malala is tweeting it up these days, but it may take some getting used to if you're a new kid on the block.

Twitter is where news is broken, links are shared, and memes are born. It's also a place for chatting with friends. Yet unlike Facebook, Twitter is public by default. And that's not a bad thing. It means your jokes can go viral (if they're funny) and in addition to your friends, you can interact with your favorite journalists, athletes, artists, or political figures, all in the same space.

Follow our tips to get started on Twitter, and set yourself up for a more fulfilling experience.

Generally speaking, tweets show up in the order they happen. At the top of a Twitter feed, you'll see tweets that are only a second old. New tweets appear at the top, pushing the older ones down. If you haven't signed on in awhile you might get a box of recommended tweets you may have missed, but outside of that the equation is simple: The further down you scroll, the older the tweets get.

This immediacy has made Twitter the go-to place to watch protests unfold around the world, follow and comment on sports games or TV shows as they happen, and make fun of celebrity missteps right when the news is hot. The best (and sometimes worst) part is that the people sharing information and tweeting photos aren't necessarily newscasters. Anyone can be a reporter or a cultural critic on Twitter, and that's led to a universe of diverse viewpoints, all amplified organically.

Tweets can contain links, photos, GIFs, or videos. But if you're tweeting text, you're limited to 280 characters. It used to be 140, which was even more stifling, but once you get used to it you'll learn to love the brevity. It helps make your tweets pithy, and there's much less rambling you have to read when scanning other tweets. Some even say Twitter helps us become better writers.

Stepping into the Twitter stream unprepared can leave you feeling rudderless. Who to follow? What to tweet? Does this show up on my Twitter page? Am I missing things my friends post? What's an RT? Follow our tips to get started on Twitter, and set yourself up for a more fulfilling experience.

Step 1: Go to Twitter.com or download the app and sign up for an account. The "Full name" that you provide will be your display name, but unlike Facebook, you can change your display name to whatever you want as many times as you want, so it's really easy to stay anonymous if you so choose.

Step 2: Enter in your phone number. This is a form of authentication that will help in case you ever lose access to your account. You'll want to use a phone you actually have access to because the next step will ask you to verify a number sent via text.

Step 3: Pick a password, and make it secure! You don't need a troll getting a hold of your account and dismantling the reputation you've worked so hard to build.