Everyone from your neighbor to the President of the United States uses X (formally Twitter). It’s a jungle out there in the Twitterverse, and learning the terminology is essential if you’re going to use the platform. Here’s a quick guide to what it means to follow on X.

Following someone on X simply means that you subscribe to their tweets or posts to receive and read them in your feed. If you want to see what a particular user is tweeting in real time, follow them. Then, when you log in to X, their comments will appear in your feed, along with the tweets of those you’ve chosen to follow.

Following someone also means you've given the person you're following permission to send you private tweets, also known as direct messages on X.

To follow an X user, select the Follow button in the lower right corner of their profile picture.