Justin Fleming’s Fuchsia Shock! - The complete website of Justin Fleming, speaking as a father, documenting this shocking future.

Justin Fleming’s Fuchsia Shock!

The complete website of Justin Fleming, speaking as a father, documenting this shocking future.
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Ideas man and muse, Cyberpunk, gadgets, photography, blogger, father. Marketingeerer for E-Outdoor.co.uk

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Give your Twitter followers the whole conversation - don't press reply but use @ mentions instead.

A while ago (May 2009?) Twitter did a 'minor' update and changed the way @replies work. Now you will only see and @reply from someone you are following IF you are also following the recipient of that reply.

Personally, I find this really annoying. The reason I am following someone is because I am interested in EVERYTHING they have to say - not just the anonymous (public) Tweets, but what that are talking to others about.
It's also the main way that services like Twitter are social - because you get to be in on public conversations with people who you don't yet know. @replies from people you follow to people you don't yet know are like little introductions.

I have no idea why Twitter changed this. I assume it's to tidy up people's MAIN pages. You can still see people's @replies if you visit their own Twitter page, but this is a little tedious.

So my idea is this, instead of clicking @REPLY when answering back to one of your followers, DON'T. Just write a normal tweet (which will be public as usual) but then @ mention the person you are replying to.

This should mean that it goes out to ALL your followers, whether they are following the recipient or not.

I have yet to test if Twitter filters out the @REPLY if it's when you press REPLY or simply when the @twittername is at the front of a tweet. Certainly, if you @mention someone at the end of a tweet, it goes public.

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Filed under  //  Twitter  
Comments (4)
Posted 3 months ago

Turn to Twitter as it's easier than blogging. Then spend all the time cutting every tweet down to 140char!?

I've only just realised that this is exactly what I do. Because Twitter is light, fun and simple, I'm drawn to using it but then I've found that I really do labour over it fixing the best ways to cut what I want to say down to the 140 char limit - much like a editor checks a story.

But what I realised this means is that I DO have something to write about. Twitter encourages me to write but it also holds me back.

What I've now discovered from using Posterous is that you can do something a little clever with your blogs to work on two levels to your readers.

Since Posterous forwards and posts to Twitter, you can do a blog post instead of twittering. But instead of a normal blog post, use the blog post's title just like a tweet - write it just like a tweet - a standalone bit of text kept to about 120 chars. Then write the rest of what you wanted to say as a normal blog post. But on sending this to Posterous, what you get is a blog post saying what you really wanted to say without constraints AND a tweet-eligible title which gets sent to Twitter with a shortened URL.

This now works on two levels since you give followers a valid tweet that doesn't require any further information AND for those interested to read more, a tiny link to an actual blog post.

Many people post their blog links to their Twitter followers but they always use the blog posts title as the tweet which typically gives an uninteresting-on-it's-own comment resembling not much more than 'check this out '.

So when writing a blog, spend more time on the title, consider it as a tweet in itself so your readers remain in control and aren't held hostage to 'click here to read on' demands.

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Filed under  //  Blogging   Marketing   Twitter  
Comment (1)
Posted 3 months ago