This is a simple blog post, intended to help clarify a question my friends have been throwing at me lately about @replies. It can get a bit confusing on how “what you see” and “what you don’t see” here is how @replies work on Twitter:

1.) If you start a Tweet with an @reply, the only people that will see the Tweet is the person you are @replying, and all the people that are following both the you and recipient of the Tweet.

For example, @heycameraman will see this Tweet, and the people who both are following me + him, will also see this Tweet:

2.) If you @mention someone within your Tweet, everyone that follows you will see the Tweet.

For example, everyone who follows me received this Tweet. Note: @Oprah will get this Tweet as well (but only if she checks her @mentions).

TIP: If you are @replying to someone, and you want to make sure everyone who follows you sees the Tweet, it’s common to use a “.” before the “@”. I prefer to use “<” and “>” with commentary before the Tweet.

Regardless of how it all works, I’ve blogged about how I believe that no one reads all your Tweets. So get over yourself. Dismiss the notion that everyone is actually reading everything you’re Tweeting. They’re not. And BTW, Twitter is only as valuable as the people you choose to follow. <– I sound so angry I’m not. I’m just passionate about this stuff!
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A client recently told me they were concerned they didn’t want to “clutter” their Tweet stream. They were concerned they didn’t want to Tweet too much.

My thoughts? No one reads all your Tweets.

Twitter is a communication tool.
…not a publishing platform.

Twitter is for holding conversations.
…and to have real dialogue and interactions without physical time and space constraints.

In the early years of Twitter (2006-’08), people actually read ALL the Tweets from the people they followed. Twitter was new, fun and only the geeky early adopters were experimenting with it. Today, the average person follows 100+ or 1000+ of people. To physically read and consume the Tweets from that many people is impossible. And more importantly, it doesn’t happen.

Twitter is like gigantic gushing stream or river of many things…
It’s filled with link referrals, pictures, thoughts, opinions, and conversations (look at this- click this- read this- watch this video-). This tool has evolved to this incredibly fast moving “river” of content. People do not consume all of it. Instead, it’s people jump-in-and-out of “the river”.

If no one reads all your Tweets, what should you do?
The more you communicate and appear within Twitter river of content, the better. On a day-to-day basis, people log-in and log-out of Twitter using multiple types of tools and at different times. People will open Twitter when they’re at work, check the latest Tweets, then their @replies, and log-out. Some people will turn their phone on, launch an application, read their Tweets and @replies and then log-out.

My point is, Twitter is flooded with content, what people see come through on their stream is dependent upon the time of day. Your followers will not see everything you post. The more you Tweet, your chance of being “noticed” in the huge river of Tweets increases.

@replies are the “email” of Twitter
Recently, I blogged about a study that found the first thing people do when they sit down at a computer is check their email. In the same respect, the 1 thing everyone checks when they login to Twitter is their @replies. People do want to know if anyone is talking to them. If you or your company had unlimited time and resources, I would tell you to Tweet as many relevant @reply interactions or DMs with as many people as you possibly could. As a general rule of thumb, when you login to Twitter, spend as much time as you can to @reply and interact. Twitter is worthless if you aren’t able to augment existing relationships or create real interactions with people of like interests. While you can use Twitter as another publishing platform, its biggest value is having real interactions through @replies with real people.

Time of day DOES matter.
The chances of anyone consuming your Tweets after 5PM on a weekday or over the weekend are less likely to happen than if you send a Tweet between 9AM to 5PM on a weekday. In my client work experience with Twitter and my own personal usage, there are more interactions and greater chance for consumption that occur Monday through Friday, 9 to 5. As a general rule of thumb, if your Tweet isn’t dependent upon time, or in response to a specific Tweet- you should tweet between 9AM to 5PM on a weekday. If you’re too busy to Tweet 9AM to 5PM, use a tool like Hootsuite that allows you to schedule your Tweets.

Twitter sucks if your friends suck.
Twitter is only as valuable as the people you choose to follow. If the people you follow provide value, then Twitter is a valuable resource you’ll keep using. You’ll keep coming back to it for more. Tweets also need to be timely, relevant, and/or provide some kind of value.

The next time you’re sitting in front of the open-ended prompt that reads, “What’s happening?” you should dismiss the notion that everyone is actually reading everything you’re Tweeting. They’re not.

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Have you read the articles buzzing around this week quoting Google co-founder Larry Page and his concerns that Google needs to be in the business of real-time search? Here’s an example of how I’m already turning to Twitter for real-time search (depending on what I’m searching for). If you’re skeptic of the value Twitter can provide, this mini-mini-micro-case study is easy, clear, simple example of how it can actually be useful regardless of your participation in the Twittersphere. Take that Google

Here’s a tip I came up with: whenever I’m shopping for things online- right when I’m about to checkout, I go to http://search.twitter.com and search for “[company name here] coupon code” or “discount”. So far, 3 out of the last 5 I’ve purchased online, I have found coupon codes to use.

I believe Facebook at the ‘flip of a switch’ can position itself to be a strong competitor to Twitter.

The power of a users’ status update on Facebook is strong — it’s not only been amplified in terms of prominence and attention on the website redesign, but more importantly it has socially been habitual by users to be updated frequently.

If you think about the fact that Twitter is now mainstream and people not entrenched into the tech industry (like my sister and my Starbucks barista) are now being introduced accepting this concept of real-time status updates wherever they go (a.k.a microblogging). Right now, this socialization or concept of receiving real-time updates is being facilitated by Twitter, it’s a “learning curve” for the masses (much like FB Newsfeed was when it was first introduced).

That said, I believe that if Facebook waits for Twitter to go through it’s life cycle of popularity — when ready they could activate the sending of status updates to Facebook users’ phones. Right now, users are required to complete the complex task of editing your ‘mobile’ settings and manually adding specifically whom you’d like to receive status updates directly to your phone.

Imagine if when you added a new friend you were prompted with “Would you like to receive mobile status updates from this person?” Or, what if, in the Newsfeed, next to users’ status updates, an icon appeared that instantly added them to your preferred mobile updates list when clicked?

technical rendering drawing done by Ramsey

While I understand Twitter is much more robust in terms of how it can be used, I’m wondering if this is in the works for Facebook? I would be a BIG fan of this feature. My social graph is much more trusted on Facebook. This is because I’m a huge proponent of keeping your Facebook social graph “clean”.

My point is; Twitter might be doing a great service to Facebook- which is socializing the real-time status update concept to the masses — and ultimately Facebook can add-in feature sets reminiscent (if not identical) to Twitter when they want to. The question is, how long should they wait to add it in? Or should they even do it?
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Twitter is getting popular. There is no denying that. A couple weeks ago, I blogged my opinion about the primary source of it’s popularity, I think it’s because of the surge of people who already are thought influencers, large companies or celebrities — they have starting using Twitter (e.g. Shaq, Obama, CNN, Lance Armstrong).

On my Twitter stream today — I shared my blunt realization regarding these “popular” celebrities:

Twitter is only as valuable as the people you choose to follow. What I’ve been finding is that my expectation that following these celebrities would provide value to me — but it hasn’t been fulfilling at all!  I was hoping to get an inside access to the thoughts of these celebs and their daily lives, but the majority of celebs aren’t utilizing it in that way (note: I do realize some celebrities are great on Twitter, but I’m speaking about the generalized majority).

The people you follow define your experience on Twitter.  If the people you follow suck, Twitter sucks. If the people you follow provide value, then Twitter is a valuable resource you’ll keep using. So what’s value mean to me?  In my mind, there are 3 things that define “value”:

• Timely: messages that address current topics, events, issues and news.
• Relevant: tweet topics need to some how affect me or have reason for me to be aware of them.
• Intimate Insight: if 1 of the 2 are not satisfied, then tweets need to provide a “personal” revelation or insight about you — humanized candid information that allows me to get to know you better.

Twitter is just one communication channel. The real-time component is powerful and unique — but only if you’re using it correctly …and that fundamentally comes down to following the right people. What are your thoughts? What celebrities are doing it right? What is your definition of value on Twitter?
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For anyone who is a Twitter user — it’s worth your time to watch this hilarious animated sketch (you can follow me on Twitter).  What’s so brilliant about it? I think it’s great because it is:

• Punchy and funny
• Clever
• Fast moving
• …they make some fairly well thought-out intellectual observations

Watch it and tell me what you think!

While I was at an event tonight, a friend of mine asked a great question. A question that was based on her own observation, one I feel is interesting to rationalize, although I’m not sure if anyone can give a 100% correct answer.

Why is Twitter getting more attention and now gaining in popularity?

I believe the recent source of Twitter’s popularity is because of a combined segment of effects: one potential source being the surge of already big thought influencers, large companies and celebrities who have started using Twitter (e.g. Shaq, Obama, CNN, Lance Armstrong, John Mayer). Significant attention is being given to Twitter because that these people ALREADY have a large following. These people have a humongous number of existing fans — and those fans are joining the Twit bandwagon in hopes of getting that ‘humanized’ interaction directly with the celebrity. If I had to guess (and this is just a guess), I would say this is a large source of it’s recent popularity.

Twitter.com was launched in 2006. It’s nothing new.

That said, another reason I also believe that Twitter is getting attention because there are so many success stories circulating in regards to the power of Twitter. “I did this on Twitter and then this happened” or “I tried this on Twitter and it was amazing”. I personally can attest of its power since it has helped me with social networking, raising 7,000+ for a benefit party, personal branding and just my plain entertainment from the witty micro-blogging from friends.

There are also smaller external factors (+that add up) outside of Twitter’s control and effects that are capturing attention to the website as well. Things like; short attention span of digital natives and their desire to “media snack”, the economy (no really, I mean it) and the continual growth of the power of the “status update”.

What are your thoughts? Why do you think Twitter is gaining popularity and attention? Is it warranted? Are people seeing the value or just joining because everyone else seems to be doing it?
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So while I was in Boston, I had some time to kill after I got off my flight before I could check-in. For those of you who follow me you may remember the Twitter message I sent out:

…minutes after I hit the ‘send’ button, both my followers from Boston responded to my message (see their responses below) and other folks who are simply tracking “Boston” responded to my tweet as well! @ChrisBrogan even sent me a direct message I knew that the advice of what to do in Boston from real people on Twitter was much better than those silly marketing brochures sitting at the information booth.  So thanks to Twitterville’s help — I ended up checking out the view at the Prudential building, went and visited the Apple store (and recorded a video blog on an iMac there) and grabbed a snack at Faneuil Hall.  Thanks everyone!