Where It's "At."

The at symbol plays an integral role in the Twitterverse. Using the "at" allows tweeters to mention, reply or give attribution for a retweet to another Twitter user. The at symbol is part of the user handle. For example, True North's handle is and mine is .

[An aside: I'm going to assume you have already been through the basic Twitter setup of securing a snappy handle for yourself, finding people you know and following their tweets. I also presume you have begun tweeting with clever quips of 140 characters or less!]

Mention
In order to give a shout out to a friend, or "mention" them, include their entire handle (with the at symbol) in your tweet. You'll notice YOUR full handle is located in your Twitter sidebar. Click that and you will see a feed of all the tweets that reference your account.



Reply
A mention placed in the beginning of a tweet is a reply. You'll notice as soon as you enter a handle, the "What's happening?" prompt at the top of your feed changes to "Reply to ." Each tweet in your newsfeed also has a reply button in the lower right when you cursor over it.



Retweet
If you like what someone else is saying, retweet it! There are two ways to retweet. Just like with replies, a retweet button appears in the lower right of each tweet when cursored over. Unfortunately, this option does not permit you to add your two cents. to get around this, manually type in your thoughts followed by
"RT " then copy and paste the tweet.



Now, let's dissect the above retweet: First, my two cents. Followed by the RT and mention attributing the original tweet. Also, notice the two hashtags to follow the conversation (see previous blog post for # info). Finally, this tweet incorporates a photo. Yes - you can post photos on Twitter using a variety of different options. This particular one is on twitpic.com

Want to learn more? Come to the True North Providence Tweetup on December 16! Details are on our Facebook fan page!