Comments on: What REALLY happens when you use “@” in Tweets?

By: Roger

Roger — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 04:04:21 +0000

Dave:

I’m confused by something that is probably very simple. I see all of these posts on a celebrity’s profile page, and I’ll open one and see all of these replies to the celebrity’s tweet. I have also replied to a couple celebrity tweets, yet my replies do not show up with the other replies to the same tweet.

Am I doing something wrong?

Thanks.

Roger

By: Dave Larson

Dave Larson — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 19:32:02 +0000

Great question! This is also a very common question

They will NOT be seen. Only followers can see the tweets of a protected account.

By: Dave Larson

Dave Larson — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 19:26:02 +0000

That is Twitter's stock response. The first thing to do is to see if your tweets are appearing in search results at all, e.g. search for from:tweetsmarter (but use your Twitter username). If you're missing completely, read this article, and if needed, contact support about your issue. If you're not missing completely, try again several times throughout the month. Twitter can have issues that last for days that go away eventually, and darkmode cases affecting your tweets not showing up are also not uncommon.

By: Jason

Jason — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 20:54:14 +0000

David,

Why do I not see my tweets when I do a search for some key words? I asked Twitter and they sent me some info which basically says that is just the way it goes for some tweeters. Any suggestions as to what I can do so others who do searches with certain key words pick up my tweets with those key words as well?

Thanks in advance.

By: Jen

Jen — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 06:22:03 +0000

If I reply to a person, yet my tweets are protected, will they still see it if he/she doesn’t follow me?

By: steve

steve — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 19:21:05 +0000

If I tweet someone (@person), will it be seen by everyone who follows that person, whether I follow the person or not? If not, how can I set it up so that all the followers see the message?

By: Dave Larson

Dave Larson — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 02:04:32 +0000

Twitter won’t deliver your tweet to your friends’ timeline if they don’t follow you (though they can still see it by visiting your page, or though a search). If you add their username to a tweet, Twitter will deliver it to their mentions timeline.

By: irene

irene — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 12:19:20 +0000

hello!! i’m a fairly new user in twitter, so i have a question.
for example, me and my friend follow Mr. C but my friend doesn’t follow me. So if I send a tweet to Mr.C, will my friend see it? or I have to mention him also for him to see it?

By: Dave Larson

Dave Larson — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 01:03:07 +0000

Yup, you figured it out! You need to NOT start with @ or some people won’t see the tweet. Starting with a “.@user…” is one way to do that. Or you can put the @username somewhere other than as the first word of the tweet. So #1 doesn’t work, but #2 or 3 will:
1) @user I’m talking to you
2) .@user I’m talking to you
3) I’m talking to you @user

By: Dave Larson

Dave Larson — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 00:49:45 +0000

First of all, you can tell by looking at the content of a tweet what will happen. It doesn’t matter how the tweet was created.

Generally speaking, in a case such as you describe, if someone doesn’t follow you, tour tweet will be shown to them if you mention them, and not if you don’t.

However, the way Twitter.com works when you click the “reply” link is to include all usernames in the reply. So if A tweets to B and you reply, Twitter will put both A and B usernames in your tweet. You would have to delete the “B” username for them to not see it.

You weren’t clear enough in your question, where you say you “didn’t mention person B.” If by that you mean their username was not in the tweet, then they won’t see it. If their username IS in the tweet, they will see it. It doesn’t matter if you add the username, delete the username, reply, etc. What matters is that when all is said and done, is the username in the tweet? If it isn’t (and they don’t follow you), they won’t see the tweet.