Tweet, Tweet.... Do You Twitter?

Let's talk about Twitter.  Do you tweet?  I think that is the correct terminology.

Everyone is all abuzz about Twitter.  I have a Twitter account.  I "follow" some people.  Fewer people follow me.  But, I'm gonna be honest - I don't really get it!

I think I "follow" 30 people.  I think they're almost all celebrities.  I follow Ellen DeGeneres, TRAIN, Rob Thomas, Justin Beiber, Wendy Williams.  And some others.  I can't really remember.  I do enjoy reading their little tweets.  And I do love if you reply, sometimes they will tweet back!  Like you are talking to that person!  Silly me... I get so starstruck!

But, if there are say.... 275,000 people following TRAIN, and they all respond... well, that's just nuts!
And I don't understand what a "hashtag" is.  Anyone? Anyone?
And how do you insert the name of the person you may be talking about into your tweet?
For example, say I tweeted, "loved the TRAIN concert last night... was a real blast!", how do I get the word "TRAIN" to show up as a link?

I'm just so confused by all of this technology!  Personally, I love facebook!  I find it easier to use.  Maybe because I've been using it for awhile.  Maybe if I start twittering a lot, I'll get used to using that, too.  There just seems to be a lot of stuff I don't know about using it yet.

If anyone can give me any pointers about this topic, I'd sure appreciate it.  Does it help with your blog status?  Or followers?  How else do you use Twitter to your advantage?