Twitter has launched a new feature: the ability to thread tweets.

To understand this feature, you have to go back to 2014, when Twitter began letting users link replies to originating tweets. It essentially allowed them to quickly post a barrage of tweets, and this resulted in the birth of the “tweetstorm.”

Since 2016, tweetstorms have become hugely popular, even helping shape current events and discussions about them. But the ability to thread tweets has, thus far, been a tedious, manual task. In the past, you’d thread tweets together by sending a tweet, then clicking "reply" on that tweet, and deleting your username and sending another tweet.

You could include a number in each tweet to indicate the order the tweets were supposed to be read, or you could just publish a series of tweets and leave it up to other users to discover their proper order. Clearly, the need for an official thread feature was needed. Now, Twitter has admitted it knows people want to sometimes post a longer thought.

So, it’s finally decided to release an update that officially introduces serialized tweets, also known as tweetstorms or threading. Here’s everything you need to know about how it works.

How to thread your tweets together

What is a tweetstorm?

If you user does a tweetstorm, he or she simply threads a series of tweets - or posts a barrage of related tweets - in quick succession.

How do you thread tweets?

To conduct a tweetstorm, or create a thread, using the new feature on Twitter, start by composing a tweet. You need to type your first tweet and then hit the new plus button in the lower right-hand corner of the composer. That’ll bring up a new field within the composer so that you can get another 280 characters to continue expressing yourself.

Do this as many times as you want until your thought, or thread, is finished, and then hit “tweet.” The entire series of tweets will publish all at once, in the order that you typed them. In other words, you just published a tweetstorm. If you want to continue updating a thread at a later point, simply open it and tap “add another tweet”. That’s it.

Can you thread tweets from mobile or desktop?

Twitter is rolling out this update to all users of its iOS and Android apps and the web. It will arrive for everyone in the coming weeks.

Want to see an example of tweetstorm or thread?

Check one out here.