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 (see more about this). 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 (to you and others)
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 ArtBizCoach.com 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.
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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!
please help I replying to tweets as directed but only appearing on my own twitter page not person I tweeting – please can you help??????
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