Your whole identity on twitter is tied the to the @ symbol. When you check your “mentions”you are checking how many times someone has typed @yourname. This “shift 2″ key tethers you to the twitter world. Now I want to talk a little bit about what the @ symbol does in twitter.
Common followers of two SA twitter users seems to be between 15 and 25%.
First, when used at the beginning of a statement (@username you are great) you are making it so that only people that follow you and the person you are messaging can see. Last week I discussed how the majority of SA professionals I tested using TweetVisor showed that the common followers of most SA pro’s was between 15 and 25%. That means that if you start a tweet with @username only about 15-25% (on average) of your followers are seeing your tweet, and none of you 75+% of your followers that are not following the person you are tweeting to see your tweet. Which means they are not being exposed to this person or potential connection. You may be OK with this, because you may want to keep something a little bit more private, but then I was ask you why are you not using a Direct Messege? Direct message can be sent quickly by typing d(space)username and is private you and the person you are messaging.
One way to alleviate the @username pitfall is by inserting something before the @ symbol. Most commonly you will see a period (.) put at the front of the tweet, or people will start a statement and insert the name later. Tweetdeck is great for this because you can insert as many @name as you want and you can insert them at any point, just by hovering over someones picture and clicking the @reply button. Some third party tools erase an entire tweet as soon as you click the reply button, forcing you to start a tweet with an @name and having to insert something before it.
So why am I bringing this up. One of my goals is to get more SA pro’s to follow each other and expose people to some of the great folks outside of their own circles. Second as more and more twitter users from the SA world are joining twitter I want to make sure that people know some of the ins and outs of twitter. For example it took me about 3 months to realize this @reply stuff.
If you are interested in increasing your circle go to the SA List, all of the SA pro’s on this list have said they want to be found and want to connect on twitter. Remember that twitter is public and a great tool to connect individuals with like interests without a whole lot of formality. Don’t be afraid to jump in and chat with someone you may not know. If you are open and willing to connect, twitter can be one of the best pro dev tools available to you.
Note* if you are following a hashtag (#) you will see all people posting on the # regardless of if you are following them or where the @ is located in a tweet. As long as people have unprotected there tweets.
How do you use the @ reply? Do you intentionally choose to keep your replies limited by starting with an @? What are your thoughts on jumping into ongoing conversations between twitter users?
