Social Media - Twitter Tips for Newbies, Noobs and the More Experienced

I’m often asked how to use Twitter. Carol Vorderman recently tweeted a question about who can see the messages ("tweets") she sends to specific people. So here are a few tips on this and other subjects.

These tips apply whether you are tweeting in a business or personal capacity, and are for the more experienced as well as for newbies:

(1) How long should a tweet be?

You probably know that each Twitter message or "Tweet" is not more than 140 characters. This is deliberately 20 shorter than SMS text messages, to allow SMS to be used with space for usernames and acronyms that start tweets, e.g. DM (direct message) and RT (re-tweet).

Tweets can therefore be sent from mobile phones using SMS, as was common originally. Now the smartphones have their own Twitter “apps” to view and send tweets.

But if you keep your tweets to 70-120 characters (leaving 20-70 characters spare). your tweets can more easily be re-tweeted by other people. This is because "RT" and your username is added to the re-tweet (see below).

(2) Views of the TimeLine

Whichever app you use, the tweets you see are just a selection from the master list of tweets called the “timeline”.

Using Twitter is like looking at the master timeline through a grill. Change the grill slightly, by changing the people you follow or by doing a search, and you’ll see a different set of tweets.

(3) Direct Messages

If you start a tweet “DM @someone” then only the someone will see it. Unlike "replies", DMs do not show in the public list of tweets for your account, nor in searches.

“DM” can be typed manually, as long as it is at the very start, or by using a “Direct Message” facility. (In “New Twitter” it is just called “Message”.)

You can only DM to an account (person) which is following the account you are using at the time.

However when they reply to you, depending on the app they use, it may come back as a DM or a public reply. Indeed they can copy and paste it into a new tweet. So best to assume that anything tweeted, by any method, is in the “public domain”. (The same of course applies to emails – I’m amazed at what gets forwarded to me, further down the email, that the original author certainly didn’t expect to go beyond the original recipient !)

(4) Replies and public messages

If you start a tweet "@someone", as happens automatically with a "reply", then normally only that person will see it. However there are two exceptions to this:

• If someone is following both you and the recipient, then some apps will display such messages
• Anyone looking at your profile will see all your tweets except DMs

So again, assume all tweets are in the public domain.

Note that if you put one or more characters (such as a space) before the @username, then all your followers will see the tweet.

When replying, consider copying some or all the original tweet into your reply, so the reply makes sense to the original tweeter.

Some apps have a “See Conversation” button which links a tweet into an intelligible series of replies.

(5) Re-tweeting

If there’s a tweet you’d like to copy to your followers, (as it’s funny, informative or whatever), then you can “re-tweet” it. This adds “RT” and the original tweeter’s username at the start.

As mentioned above, it is therefore worth  keeping your own tweets to 70-120 characters (leaving 20-70 characters spare).so your tweets can more easily be re-tweeted by other people.

Some apps let you edit the re-tweet and add comments. Or you can copy and paste it into a new tweet, together with the author's username, and manually start it "RT".

(6) Usernames

The username you use to login is fundamental to your Twitter existence. As far as possible keep the username the same as you “real name” which is also part of the set up.

The username is your address, whereas your real name displays against each tweet. Tweets from you show your real name, tweets to you only show your username. So best to keep the two names similar or the same, otherwise you are expecting people to remember two names for you.


When setting up your username, it’s therefore worth keeping it short so that characters are not wasted for Retweets and any other tweets sent to you. So @carolvorders is better than @carolvorderman, but @carolv or @carolvord are shorter and would therefore have been better (if either had been available).

You can change your username and real name at any time. However changing the username is like changing your telephone number – it causes all sorts of issues. Best to get ithe username right first time, if you still have the chance.

In registering the username, it is case-specific. So register "CarolVorders" and it will always appear in tweets as @CarolVorders. However:

• Registering "CarolVorders" prevents anyone else registering any variations such as Carolvorders
• The login process to Twitter is not case sensitive, so Carol can log in as CAROLVORDERS

(7) Blocking and Unfollowing unwelcome people

If someone sends tweets to you that you find really annoying, perhaps because there are too many tweets, there is the option to “block” them.

Likewise if you follow someone that becomes boring or annoying, then simply unfollow them.

(8) Celebrities

Remember celebrities are actually real, if not ordinary people. Some have a big ego, some don’t. If you send tweets to them, they will usually respond much like you would:

• They will re-tweet the funny, the oddball, or the worthy
• They will especially re-tweet if you offer praise for a book, show or whatever else they have done (but don’t over-do these re-tweets celebs!)
• They will reply to your sensible questions, at least when they have the time and inclination

However over-do the tweets you send to them, in number or content, and they will simply ignore you. They may even block you. You wouldn’t want to be “stalked” any more than they do!

(9) Tweeting Frequency

Tweets have a natural life of no more than around an hour. After that tweets tend to pass beyond the view of anyone looking at their Twitter feed occasionally. So this means re-tweet rates plummet after about an hour.

So if you’re trying to get a message across to your followers, and the world in general, then tweet fairly frequently during the day. However simply repeating the same message, even with different words, will infuriate your followers who are reviewing their tweets regularly. They may then unfollow you. Find different ways of saying it, and only tweet as often as you would tolerate if you were following yourself all day.

The other issue is to avoid tweeting in blocks. If you retweet, send a public tweet or even reply to people so that you are sending tweets in quick succession in blocks of more than 2 or 3, then you will saturate the screens of some of your followers. This can be very annoying for them if it happens too often. I find I simply don’t read blocks of tweets from the same person, and will then unfollow persistent offenders.

This issue. is especially relevant to sending automated tweets. Space the tweets out a bit in time so other people's  tweets are likely to appear between them.

If you are tweeting for an audience in a different time zone, then spacing tweets may still come through as a block to your followers, given the absence of tweets from other people they follow. Worth considering:

• Separate Twitter accounts for the domestic and overseas audiences, and/or
• Automating tweets, perhaps to repeat tweets but at a different time of day to suit each audience

(10) Differing Twitter Apps

If you look at tweets through Twitter’s own apps (either the old, new or mobile versions), then you can see what app and possibly device is being used.

For example you can see Philip Schofield uses Twitter’s own app on his iPhone and iPad. Carol Vorderman has an iPhone but also uses Twitter “via web”, probably on her PC. Dave Gorman tends to use Tweetdeck,.plus Twidroid  from some type of android mobile phone.

Tweetdeck is very common, and it’s worth knowing it has three columns for “Direct Messages”, “Mentions” (where their username is somewhere in the tweet) and their main “Timeline” for people they follow. TweetDeck also lets you add customised columns for searches etc. As “Direct Messages”, “Mentions” are more obvious to Tweetdeck users, they tend to see and respond to Mentions more than people using other apps. Other people typically have to click a button periodically to see their mentions.

Hootsuite is another common tool, which also allows you to handle Facebook, LinkedIn and other social media within the one app.

There are many other options. The apps are usually free, sometimes sponsored by adverts. So see what other people are using (as above), find out a bit about the apps from the websites, and try them out.

One word of warning  though. Watch put for any app that you can set to automatically download tweets every few minutes. It can be downloading thousands of tweets a day, each of which has an “avatar” (photos etc) of the tweeter. Depending on the app's design, it can download the same avatars repeatedly. This can consume vast amounts of your precious megabytes if you are using a phone, 3G dongle or otherwise have a limited monthly data allowance. It can get very expensive left on overnight!

(11) Multiple accounts

It is possible to have multiple accounts, such as for yourself and your business. But Twitter doesn’t encourage multiple accounts, and their own apps don’t cater for them. You’ll need to use another app, most of which do handle multiple accounts. Just try a few, as above.

(12) Lots more to say, but one last thing for now – Apps for Photos, Videos , Soundbites and longer tweets

If you want to write more than 140 characters, or add a photo, soundbite or video, then there are a number of apps like @twitlonger and @twitpic.. Again look at what other people are using, and see whether you like how they look to your readers, and the way they work

You typically use these apps by logging in whilst already logged into a Twitter account, and the app automatically connects to Twitter, If you have multiple accounts, then it is the account you are logged into at the time. Just check you are posting to the right account each posting!