As I said in earlier posts, Twitter is a social medium. You want to be friendly and have conversations. So, you reply to tweets from other people. Twitter makes this very easy.
Let’s say you’re watching your @Replies very closely, as you should be. Someone mentions you in one of their tweets, so it shows up on your @Replies page (see more about this) and you want to respond. Let me give you a step-by-step example of the process.
In this example, @Loriwords (Lori Woodward Simons) mentioned in her tweet that she just joined my affiliate program. I know this because she mentioned me by my @name and it showed up on my @abstanfield page. This is what it looks like there.
If I put my cursor over her tweet, I see a star and an arrow on the right.
The star is to make this a Favorite tweet and the arrow is to reply to what she wrote. When I click on that arrow and Twitter takes me to the update form and automatically enters @Loriwords at the beginning of my tweet. You can see, too, that it takes up 11 characters since it shows I have only 129 characters remaining for that tweet.
I type in my response and click on the update button and voila!
It appears on my page and on the @page of @Loriwords.
Make Your Replies Even More Helpful
Note in the example that I didn’t just say “Thanks!” to Lori. If I had wanted to do that, I would have sent her a Direct Message (DM) because only she would know why I was sending her a thank-you tweet. Because my followers will also see what I wrote, they would have no idea why I was thanking Lori.
In my reply, I thanked Lori for joining my affiliate program. That could lead my followers to think “Gosh, I didn’t know Alyson had an affiliate program. I should get in on this!” To help expedite the process of becoming one of my affiliates, I also added the link to the Art Biz Coach Affiliate Program page.
Whenever you reply to a tweet, be clear on what you’re replying to so that others can join in the conversation. Either retweet (see #5 on that post) what they originally wrote or add words that explain what you’re talking about.
***One last thing: You don’t have to reply to tweets only when they mention you. Reply whenever you have something to add to the conversation.
9 thoughts on “How To Reply To Tweets on Twitter”
Thanks Alyson for taking the time to write up these Twitter Instructions. Instead of retyping them myself, I’ll just send folks to your blog.
@Loriwords
I’m absolutely LOVING Twitter. I resisted joining it for so long but now I couldn’t do without it. If you use it well, it’s a fantastic tool for making new connections and sharing information. I like how collaborative it can be, with people generously passing on information and responding to people’s questions. And it’s tons of fun too – I’ve been laughing hysterically at the #competitivegeekbaiting tag that’s been happening over the last few days.
Twitter is great fun- but it can be very seductive! Hard to walk away from the monitor! I also realize that it is affecting my writing. You have to be succinct to communicate in 140 characters!
Twitter is a great way to connect. I look for artists and environmental activists to follow using twilerts.
It’s a new world!
One thing to keep in mind is that Twitter’s rules now allow @replies to go ONLY to those others who follow both parties. If you want all your followers to get the @reply tweet, you must place at least one character in front of the “@”. Some do it by using a period at the front: “.@reply” I like to make the @reply part of a sentence whenever possible.
In some ways this rule works to a tweeter’s advantage, in that you can control the readership to an extent. To limit a tweet just to those who follow both parties, put the ‘@’ at the very front, to send to all your followers, put the ‘@’ somewhere inside the tweet.
Hi Alyson,
“I’d Rather Be in the Studio!” was certainly a nice swift kick in the ass for me, and I have to say- I think a large majority of artists new to a non-art school lifestyle need. As for Art/Work, it’s an excellent book with a lot of primary source information (ie, interviews with Artists and Arts professionals). I think you’ll like it, based on your own work. Thank you for commenting on my post! It’s nice to know people read it once in a while. Don’t be a stranger.
Kirsty: I have to make sure I’m following you. Love your blogs!
Walter: Thanks for posting this! I hadn’t realized they made that change. I’m going to have to do an addendum to this post. I appreciate the diligence.
Aaron: You’re quite welcome. Come back often!
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please help I replying to tweets as directed but only appearing on my own twitter page not person I tweeting – please can you help??????