Very common Twitter mistakes: using @Brandwise to start a tweet

One thing many people using twitter may not understand about using the @message to start their tweets is that this message is rarely seen.

Typically twitter users will use the @ symbol before a twitter user’s handle like “@Brandwise” if you were going to have a conversation with Brandwise. Then the user of that twitter handle will get a notice and can participate in a conversation with you. The great misunderstanding though is that although the person with the twitter handle you are mentioning will see any mentions they get, other users may not see this message.

The only people that will be able to see this message are the person sending the message, the person who’s twitter handle is used and anyone who follow both the sender and the person being mentioned.

The point here is this: if you are trying to promote someone like my buddy Chuck over at @synergybcast, I would not want to start out my tweet with his twitter handle.

So if I did a tweet like this:

• @synergybcast offers the best on-demand video education for hospitals – check it out http://bit.ly/kTCPFa 

The only people that would see this message are me, Chuck and only people that follow us both. Even though my intent was promoting Chuck and his company to my 1200+ followers, it would realistically only go out to a handful of people probably 20 or less.

So if you want to promote your friends, colleagues, other business contacts or vendors, how do you do it?

Well there is a very easy solution. Instead of putting the twitter handle at the beginning of the tweet, put it someplace else.

Try something like this instead:

• Wow, @synergybcast offers the best on-demand video education for hospitals – check it out http://bit.ly/kTCPFa 

Because there is normal content before the twitter handle, twitter sees this as a message to all instead of a personal conversation between a few. Of course on the flip side, if you only want a private conversation between a small group you could use this technique to limit viewers as well.

Twitter is a powerful tool for building you business and personal brand. You do however need to be using the tool correctly in order to get the best bang for your time investment. I hope this helped you find another way to use twitter more effectively.

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