Communicating Effectively On Twitter

What really happens when you use “@” in tweets? I bet you’re all thinking it just tags the person you follow into the message and everyone can read this tweet, but no.

This is really important for businesses to understand because sometimes they can want all their followers to see so that customers or potential customers can interact with their posts. If they don’t understand that they could just be tweeting the person they are tagging and not tweeting everyone who follows them, this could change the way a customer or potential customer sees the business. The customers could think that the company doesn’t interact with them as much as they should and could lose customers which is really bad for the business.

So, here is what you can do to prevent this from happening

I bet none of you would have thought that where you put the @ can be the difference between everyone who follows you on Twitter seeing the tweet and only the person who is tagged in the tweet seeing this tweet.

Confused? I was too at first - let me explain.

First things first: no matter where you put the @someone, that person will see the post. But if you put the @someone at the beginning of the post this post will only be shown to the @someone and anyone who follows both you and @someone.

If you put @someone at the end of this message not only will the post be shown to @someone and the people who follow you both; this will be shown to everyone on Twitter who follows you or @someone even if the person is just following you or just following @someone.

If you want the person who you are tagging to the post and everyone following you to see the tweet but want to tag the person at the end of the tweet or in the middle of the tweet it’s common to use a period “.” For example .@someone would be sent to the person tagged and everyone following you both, simply through the use of a full stop.

If you were to misspell the follower you were intending to include in the tweet and this user does not exist, this tweet would be able to be seen by all of your followers.

To speak to a person through Direct Message (DM) they must follow you before you can DM them privately. Whereas anytime you put an @someone in your tweet, it will be sent to a @person regardless of if they follow you or not.

It’s amazing how all of these things different things can come out of one @ sign but I’m glad I can share it with you now if you never knew before.