When you only have 140 characters to work with, every single one of them counts. Twitter, an extremely popular micro-blogging platform, has developed a shorthand to make the most of those limited characters. Let’s take a look at some of the Twitter commands and shorthand.
Twitter commands
| Command | Example | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Follow | follow beanfair | Adds the person with the username beanfair to your friends timeline.Their updates will appear on your homepage |
| @username | @beanfair I agree LVS Online is the greatest! | This is a public reply to a specific person on Twitter. It will show on your timeline and on their reply tab. For this to show as a reply, it must be at the start of the update |
| D username | D beanfair What does #followfriday mean? | This is a private message to a specific person on Twitter. You can only send direct message to someone that is following you. These messages don’t show up on public timelines but are accessible via the Direct Message tab on your Twitter web page. |
Twitter shorthand
RT
RT @SandyStepien: Would like to know: Who is your favorite car rental agency?
‘Having a problem with Hertz … ‘hope they can resolve soon.
This is a retweet. The RT signifies that you are passing on information or a question that was initiated by someone else. When you retweet, you give credit to the original source by including @username in your retweet. By including the original username in the retweet, you provide the means for your followers to connect with the originator. Because the @SandyStepien is not at the beginning of the update, this will not show in her Twitter web page reply tab but it will show in some 3rd party applications like Tweetdeck.
Hashtags
Check out @foodimentary for fun and interesting food facts #followfriday
Hashtags designate Twitter topics. Anyone can designate a Twitter topic. A couple of weeks ago, @micah made #followfriday a topic. Basically you recommend others that you think are worth following and why. Include the hashtag #followfriday to make it easy for others to find on the public timeline and via searches. On Fridays, try this search FollowFriday to find great people for you to follow.
One of the most common type of hashtag is for workshop and events. I learned a lot about the Seattle Startup Weekend by paying attention to the #ssw2. When I heard mention of a project that I was interested in and wante more information, I included that hashtag in my question. I not only had my answer in less than 5 minutes, I had the contact person for the project and three new followers!
@swallner has let me know that twitterfox doesn’t use hashtags but most 3rd party apps and the regular Twitter web site does.
@
LindaEaves: Great meeting with @beanfair yesterday. She does this class: http://tinyurl.com/5u5gmf
Earlier in this post, we talked about using @username at the beginning of an update as a reply to a prior update. The @username can be used anywhere in an update. In most 3rd party apps and the Twitter web page, using @username will create a link so your followers can easily check out that person’s profile. Note that because the @beanfair is in the middle of the update, this does not show up as a reply on my Twitter web page but it does show up as a reply on Tweetdeck. You can always do a search on username to see what people are saying about you as well.
These are some of the most common Twitter command and shorthand. Have more to add or a question? Let me know! Check out my Twitter for Business and Pleasure course
How do you know exactly what I need? It’s uncanny I tell you.
Linda, I am glad that you found the post to be helpful. Note that I used one of your tweets as an example as what to do. The only suggestion to improve that tweet would be to include 1-2 keywords to give followers an idea of what the meeting was about like
“Great meeting with @beanfair about blog planning yesterday. She does this class: http://tinyurl.com/5u5gmf”
That does two things. First and foremost, it is letting your followers know that you are in the planning stages of a blog. If you continue updates about the initiation process of your blog, you build anticipation and start the association between Linda and blogging. Secondly, tiny urls save space on Twitter but we lose the clues of the domain name. People have limited time and are less likely to click a link if they have no idea where it will take them. By including blog planning or something similar in the tweet, you are helping people decide if clicking that link will be worth their time or not.
This helps to start making sense to me… it’s almost like reading one of the Latin languages. I can read them just fine, for pronunciation, but have only the slightest understanding of what I’m reading. It’ll come, I know, bit by bit. Thanks, Bean…
Barb,
You are right. It does take some getting used to, as most tools do. Part of the challenge is that it is so new, that conventions are really just beginning to emerge with things like #followfriday. It was only started three weeks ago!
I missed this before – Very helpful!
I just put this up yesterday per student request. I am glad people are finding it helpful.
I think it can be beneficial to distill some of this information into one place like this.
Exceedingly useful post about Twitter vocabulary. Thanks very much.
The only problem I have is that I have never been able to find a hash key on the Mac keyboard. I don’t think there is one. Every time I want to type a hash, I have to find one somewhere else and copy and paste it. Maybe that’s why some don’t use it. If anyone can tell me how you get a hash on a Mac, I would be grateful to know.
Goodness, Valerie — what’s on your shift 3 key???
Great resource. Thanks, Bean.
Valerie, the hashtag is the same thing as the pound # key … as Barb said, press your shift key while clicking your number 3 key.
Thanks Barb and Sandy. Actually it’s February 15th now and I’ve only just found your helpful suggestions. In fact meanwhile I have asked on Twitter, and found it is Option+ 3 that gives me a hash. Shift 3 just gives me the £ (pound) symbol.
When you track a topic, eg track followfridays, do you use the hash or not? Thx!
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Thanks ….it was quite helpful.
what do U mean…that one can add hashtag(#) in any type of tweets. and whats the exact sole purpose of using them..?
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hashtags help others find tweets. It might be helpful to think of them as labels. I was recently at a Food and Wine expo and the official hashtag was #SFWE. People used that hashtag to quickly identify which tweets were about the event. With over 200 vendors, people were using Twitter as a means to recommend which exhibits to check out. It helped people plan their journey and their tastes through the event.