Again, I say: I am going to share a few things that I have learned so that I can just point some of my new friends at this blog instead of typing it all out individually. Now, here is the catch, this is my opinion and my perception of how it works. If you have a different opinion or you know that it works differently please kindly share. That would be very appreciated and helpful.
The @ is considered a reply. Most programs I have seen have a reply button/option. When you select it, it is like e-mail, it addresses your tweet to that person. So if you are reading a tweet and you “reply” to it your tweet will go to that person. Most programs will start the tweet like this: “@person” then you type your message after.
@1 (this is a tweet to @HelpYouWell)
Not too long ago twitter changed the way @ functions**. I believe now if you leave the “@person” as the first word in the tweet (see @1) only the person you are replying to and that person’s followers will see it. Your followers will be left out of the conversation. If you type something before the @person (see @2) then your followers will see it too. Since Twitter is a social network where people are freely sharing information it makes sense to me to take that extra second and type something in front of the @ so “everyone” can see it. Also it helps demonstrate that you are replying to people. If you reply but your followers don’t see it they might think that you are not engaging with others.
@2
**Exactly how Twitter changed it, I am not sure. I just know that it does not function as it used to, so you want to type something before that @ so it can be seen by more people.
You can also just use the @ to send a message to someone, it does not necessarily have to be a reply to a message. It is just called “reply” sometimes. I call them at-messages.
RT or retweet is something you do when you like what you have read and want to share it with your followers. Again, most programs that I have seen have a retweet options so it will take the tweet and copy it into the tweet box with a “RT @person” in front of it. So, it is doing several things:
1: by putting RT it is indicating that the tweet is a “retweet”
2: it is “addressing” the tweet to the person that sent it (with the @person) allowing them to see that you liked their information enough to share it AND at the same time giving them “credit” for having tweeted
3: it is allowing you to share the information with your followers.
Often when I RT I type in something front to give an idea as to why I am retweeting. (I didn’t in the example above, but, I often do.)
The DM is a direct message so when you “DM” someone it goes only to them. BUT you might still want to think of it as a publicly viewed tweet so you remember to watch you Ps and Qs. In order for you to DM someone, they have to be following you. If you are following them, but they are not following you, it won’t go through. TweetDeck will tell you that they are not following you.
I might do another post about TweetDeck. I don’t know too much about it, but I use it.
Please share your thoughts with me.
Terre Pruitt's Blog 