Types o update
@Mentions
Twitter messages can be addressed to aspecic person by using the @ symbolalong with their name.
Example:‘@porternovelliHey!What’sall
the uss about this Twitter?’You can place the @Name in any part o the message, such as ‘So @porternovelliwhat’s new with you?’ and the intendedrecipient or recipients will still get it. Youcan include as many people as you wantto in your message; just remember thateach @Name takes up part o your 140character limit.When you send an @Mention, only theperson, or people, you have sent it to willsee your message, unless your ollowersare also ollowing them.
Direct messages
Twitter’s ‘DM’ unction sends privatemessages between users. These messagesare sent to the recipient’s direct messageinbox and are not published to the Twitterstream or everyone else to see. You cansend a DM to anyone who ollows youbut you cannot send one to a person youollow, unless they also ollow you back.This is a measure put in place by Twitterto try and prevent users being spammed.You can create a direct message byplacing a D or d at the beginning o amessage ollowed by a space and thenthe recipient’s name. There is no needto use the @ symbol, though you can i you wish. Just don’t orget to includethe gap between the d and the name, oryour message will appear in your publictimeline and those o your ollowers.Example: ‘d porternovelli So can you tell meo the record how to use the DM unction?’
Badexample:‘dporternovellistilltryingto
get the hang o how to DM!’You can also send direct messages via theweb page by clicking on ‘Direct Messages’in the right hand column. This will takeyou to your inbox and you can use thedrop down box to select who you want tosend a message to. The various applicationsalso have easy short-cuts to create DMs.
Retweets
I a riend ‘tweets’ something you wantto share with your ollowers, you can‘retweet’ it. This simply means copying
theirupdateandputting‘RT’infront
o it along with their username. You canretweet to share something interestingwith ollowers, or as a avour to theoriginal poster. So i Porter Novelliposts something you want to share, you
couldretweetsomethinglikethis:‘RT@
porternovelli Working on a new blog post
aboutsocialmediaandPR.Thoughts?’
It is perectly permissible to request aretweet rom your ollowers but youshould bear in mind that, in order toacilitate easy retweeting, you should keepyour original message pithy; this is so theretweeter can easily include your namein the message without having to edit it.It is also perectly acceptable to request a
retweetbyaddingthephrase‘pleaseRT’
in your original message. An example
wouldbe‘RT@PorternovellirevisingPN
Guide to Everything Twitter http://bit.ly/
VjJpO.Anysuggestions?PlsRT-Thx!’
We suggest that you leave 10 - 20characters o space when you compose
yourrequest.Youcanevenaddin‘RT
@Name’ when you drat your tweet tomake sure you have let enough room oreasy retweeting; just remember to delete itbeore you hit Update.
Hash tags
You might occasionally see the # symbolin some people’s messages ollowed bya string o letters, such as #swinefu
or#BGT.Theseallowpeopletotrack
conversations around a cultural event,
suchasthenalofBritain’sGotTalent
or the threat o a new pandemic, withoutneeding to ollow everyone taking part in
theconversation.Hashtagconversations
can be tracked by using Twitter’s searchpage or you may see them appear on yourTwitter home page i they are a currenttrending topic.
Trends
As with any large multi-rangingconversation taking place, there are certaintopics that will be more popular thanothers at any given time. Twitter tracksthese and displays the current top tentrending topics in the right-hand column o your home page. They are also displayedon its search page. While it is not necessaryor a word or phrase to have a hashtag inront o it to trend, it can help identiy acurrent meme or conversational ad.
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