What You Need to Know About Dancing with the Stars (and How to Vote for Aly Raisman)

I'll admit it upfront: I've never seen more than 5 minutes of Dancing with the Stars.

But with Needham/Burlington/Newton homegirl Aly Raisman as a contender in tonight's premiere episode of DWTS, as it is known, I had to wade in to figure it out. For the rest of you who really want to support Aly, but haven't a clue how it works, here's what I have discovered so far. PLEASE add your tips and tricks to the comments section below, because if Aly's fans don't vote for her, she's toast. 

There are many moving parts to the whole DWTS phenomenon, including a massive social media component. But most of all, you need to know how to vote and how to follow on Twitter:

• Click here for the complete rundown on how to vote. Read it carefully.
• To follow on Twitter, you don't need to have a Twitter account unless you want to add your tweets. To simply watch the Twitter stream about the program (now and during the show), go to twitter.com and search for #DWTS. That will pull up all the tweets where tweeters have used that hashtag to talk about the show.

Tuesday morning, Patch will have a complete rundown of how Aly did on the show. Let us know how you voted (text, phone call, website, etc.)