The Twitter Dot, what the heck is it?!? You may have noticed when viewing the wall of some Twitter users that when they tweet someone they put a dot in front of the person’s username, but why? There is a reason why people do this and it silently plays quite a big role and I have some evidence curiosity of my manager!
Ever tweeted at someone using the @username at the start of a tweet but wonder where the heck has it gone? You don’t see anything on their wall until they respond to your message sometimes they don’t at all so it is lost in the Twittersphere forever…so it seems. Well, this is where the . comes into play!
The Twitter dot is the equivalent of a cyber megaphone!
When you put a . in front of @username then you are basically sending the conversation to your follower’s Twitter feeds AND the Twitter feeds of the user you are tweeting at thus enhancing your reach to a lot of people. For example, if you have ( like me ) 5000 Twitter followers and the person you tweet has 10k followers then that’s got the potential reach of over 15,000 Twitter users to see it and potentially follow you if you have something interesting to say!
If you forget to add the Twitter dot before the @username then you will only have a normal conversation that is seen between you and anyone who follows both you and the person you have tweeted.
Example of the Twitter Dot in use
My boss has several Twitter accounts one of which is a personal blogging account with a tongue in cheek approach to Twitter. He started the day before I mentioned this technique of talking to people with 16 followers and it had been static for quite a while and then within 72 hours he is now on 385 followers! That is quite a hefty increase from this one simple technique!
Having Twitter Followers isn’t enough
Twitter is a social media platform and it is important to build relationships as well as build followings and communicate with your following, ask them questions, get them to share things, ask them nicely to RT things and they will likely do so.
Do you have any other techniques that may help you build a useful Twitter following? Do you use the Twitter dot and what else would you recommend people do to improve their reach?