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Who sees your @ replies in Twitter?

November 30, 2011

When you reply to a Tweet from someone on Twitter their name automatically appears behind the @ symbol, ie, @scottgreenfield.

I always presumed that meant that everyone who was following me saw my reply. It was only when I sent a direct reply that I presumed my audience was limited, in that case to just the person to whom I sent the direct tweet message.

Not true. When I send a tweet to @scottgreenfield, it’s only the people who are following both me and the person I am replying to, Scott Greenfield, who can see my conversation with the person I am replying to.

To get around this, you can use a period before the @ symbol. By sending a reply to .@scottgreenfield everyone who is following me will see my reply.

It can be annoying to those following you to see your conversations in the form of Twitter replies. In most cases they have no interest in your Twitter conversation with one person. That’s why I usually use a direct message, ie, Message scottgreenfield.

But there are occasions where I believe my followers could learn from the Twitter dialogue I am having with one of my followers. In which case, I used the reply response, ie, @scottgreenfield.

Until today I thought my reply Tweet was going to all my followers. It turns out those replies were only seen by those who follow Scott Greenfield and I on Twitter. I suppose it makes sense to quite the noise, it’s just something I didn’t know.

Hat tip to LexBlog’s Editorial Manager, Colin O’Keefe, for the heads up.

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