There are 5 types of tweets that you can create on Twitter. Knowing what each type does and when to use each type can make a big difference for your business reach and your social media visibility. I will be teaching these to my Halifax social media business workshop.
The five types of tweets are:
- Plain text tweet
- Reply tweet
- Mention tweet
- Retweet
- Direct message
Plain text tweet:
- Contains only text, spaces and characters (no @usernames included)
- Seen by all the followers of the Twitter account and by those who use search for keywords.
- The example below demonstrates a plain text tweet
The best conversationalists are the best listeners.
— Vala Afshar (@ValaAfshar) July 8, 2013
Reply tweet:
- @ sign and user name hard to left of tweet. Text follows after @username
- Seen by sender, by the receiver – person who has the @username, and by anyone that is following both accounts at the same time. It is also seen by those who search for keywords.
- The example below shows a @Reply tweet to my friend Vala Afshar
@ValaAfshar Great piece of advice Vala
— Jeff Brown (@4JeffBrown) July 8, 2013
Mention tweet:
- Text in front of the @ sign and user name
- Seen by sender, by person who was mentioned – person who has the @username in the tweet, and by all the senders followers. It is also seen by those who search for keywords.
- The example below shows a @Mention tweet to my friend Rob Cairns
Hi Rob @RobCairns How is the day going? Showing my readers a "@" Mention tweet for my blog 🙂
— Jeff Brown (@4JeffBrown) July 8, 2013
Retweet:
- RT in front of message (Traditional) or quotes around tweet with via @username included.
- Seen by all the senders followers and the @username account that was retweeted. It is also seen by those who search for keywords.
- The example below shows a retweet:
RT @arkarthick: To be normal is actually boring, so I want to be outstanding instead! #quote #JShe RT @jshe
— Kevin Green (@FixedOpsGenius) July 8, 2013
Direct Message:
- d in front of text (Private message) – message goes into receiver’s email Inbox.
- Seen only by receiver. Sender sees message in own Direct Message section.
Knowing when to use each type is important for creating visibility for your business. For a new account, I would recommend using more “@” Mentions than “@” Replies. We will be discussing this and more strategy tips for using Twitter during my next social media class in Halifax.
Any questions? Please feel free to ask below.