I set up a direct reply to thank people for following me, let them know that they can get hold of me anytime by either @orDM and to give them the address of my blog.

It’s a mix of courtesy, we english are sticklers for manners, and information. If people need to know my blog address for whatever reason I just ask them to follow me on twitter and it seems to work nicely.

So not all auto responds are spam, it just depends how you use it.

Thank you, sorry, thank you, sorry, awfully sorry, thank you #english

However, and this may not necessarily be a “tip” or anything for beginners, I’m a big fan of the occasional hashtag that really doesn’t function as a hashtag.

This is usually done as a sarcastic aside at the end of a tweet, and is such a specific or long string of words that it’s never going to be something that is actually tracked.

For example, someone might tweet something like (totally made up BTW):

“Ugh, why don’t people get the whole ’10 Items or FEWER’ signs at grocery checkout lines? #learntocountpleasekthx”

Now, obviously I’m not ever going to use that hashtag again, and no one is really going to “track” that, but, it’s kind of just makes that little comment, “Learn to count please k thx”, be one last little jab at the end there.

That may not be the perfect example, but it’s the best I’ve got right now.

Anyone else know what I mean or agree with me? Disagree?

Nice written topic! Everything one wants to know ’bout Twitter, but is afraid to ask…

from the Dutch mountains,

MacBoyd

For example, if I tweet:

@CaliLewis Great blog posts!

then, if someone is following me, but not @CaliLewis, they will not see that tweet in their timeline, even though they’re following me. However, if the name is mentioned somewhere else:

Everyone! Check out @CaliLewis’s latest blog post! http://is.gd/1pAJr

Then it will even be seen. It can even be as subtle as:

.@CaliLewis Great blog posts!

At first I thought I wasn’t going to like it, because I sometimes liked seeing what my friends are saying to others (and it gave me a good idea of who else I could follow). But the value for celebrities and people following them is great. They can @reply to people knowing that it won’t clutter up the feeds of most of their fans (followers). @Veronica does this a lot. Not only that, but some people use twitter as a chat service, and if I’m not following both people, it really quiets things down.

For example, I never saw Cali’s tweet to @AnnyChih until I went to twitter.com/CaliLewis

Michael

I probably do it too much myself. I do have a warning on the page linked in my bio though. It’s all the “disclaimers” people should read before following me… I tweet too much, I swear, don’t be emo drama queen about unfollowing me or I’ll make fun of you, etc.