I feel like I have to explain this to people so often that I need to make a page for it so I can just send a link. I have no idea how people can be on Twitter for years and not figure this out, but at the same time I don’t know why Twitter doesn’t explain it better when you sign up.

If you start a Tweet with an @reply the only people who can see that are the people following both you and that person you are @ing. So for example if you Tweet “@drivenbyboredom is the greatest photographer and human to ever live” the only people who will see that Tweet in their Twitter stream are people who follow both you and me. Now if they go to your actual Twitter page they will see the Tweet but no one ever does that. They just look at their stream.

The reason Twitter does this is because no one wants to read their friends Tweeting back and forth with strangers. So if you are replying to your friend that I don’t know, then I don’t have to read it. But if I follow both of you then I am in on the conversation. But even if you aren’t replying to a Tweet Twitter doesn’t distinguish and so no @replies show up in feeds unless you follow both people.

So Don’t start a Tweet with an @ sign unless you are replying to someone. If you want to tell people how amazing I am you can start with a word like “So…” or “Hey…” or you can just put a period in front of it if you are out of characters. So you could do “So @drivenbyboredom is pretty much the best thing to happen to my life” or you could say “.@drivenbyboredom looks amazing naked!”  Either way everyone you follow will see it and they will thank you with money and oral sex because you introduced them to the greatest thing about Twitter… me.

 

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