TWITTERRRR QUESTIONnn!?

[Merrycow399]

Okay, so little ole' me dicided to finally get a twitter. I LOVE IT! Its soooo addicting though, and kinda confusing. Okay, how do You TWEET PEOPLE? like what does it say?

[Peter Davies]

@cnl this is how you tweet someone. Use the @ symbol before their name (twitter name that is).

[Swineacles]

There are two ways to "TWEET PEOPLE" - @Mentions and Direct Messages.


An @Mention can be sent to any person at any time by simply placing their username preceded by an '@' character (with no space in-between) at any place in a tweet. If the @Mention starts your tweet, it will only be seen in the feed of those who follow both the mentioner and the mentioned, as well as being visible to any who search for @Mentions to the mentioned or for tweets by the mentioner. If the @Mention appears at some other place in the tweet, it will appear in the feed for all of your followers. With @Mentions, it is also possible to reference multiple people in one tweet (For example, if you were hanging out with me at a Jonathan Coulton concert, you might tweet "Hanging out with @Swineacles while waiting for @JonathanCoulton to take the stage." which would be visible to all of your followers. This feature was designed to help you be better able to spread to your followers knowledge of other people on Twitter, making the community aspect more effective, you'll see that on Fridays many people have a tradition known as Follow Friday in which they will tweet "#FF @[username of someone I find interesting that I think you may be interested in following]" sometimes having multiple people mentioned, this helps friends connect to one another as well as common interests.).

Common Twitter etiquette dictates that you place a single period before an @Mention (For example ".@Swineacles is an awesome guy." which, if tweeted, would appear to all of your followers.) if you wish for all of your followers to see the tweet and cannot creatively work the @Mention into the context of the tweet otherwise.


A Direct Message may only be sent to someone who follows you and is private, only being seen by yourself and the indicated recipient. There are multiple ways to send a Direct Message. You can make a tweet starting with the letter 'd', a space, and then the intended recipient's username (For example, if I were following you on Twitter, you could type a tweet that read "d Swineacles I enjoy the company of turtles as well!" and I would receive a DM from you saying "I enjoy the company of turtles as well!" yet we would be the only ones to see it.). You may choose instead to go to one's Twitter page and locate the "message [username]" button that appears slightly below the update count. Additionally, the vast majority of third-party twitter apps feature DM shortcuts that make the process easier.

Common Twitter etiquette dictates that Direct Messages be used whenever personal information is being shared or a conversation is expected to cover topics that one or more people involved may not be entirely comfortable having be public knowledge, however, when nothing is to be lost, keeping things public may be seen as better adhering to the ideals of Web 2.0.