Jude’s Blog

I’ve become quite addicted to Twitter.com during the last month. I’ve acquired more friends and followers, so I see a bunch more peoples’ updates. There is something called Follow Friday that most users do every Friday. What is it, you ask? It’s a way of telling your followers who they should follow. You post #followfriday and then a bunch of names of people you like on twitter. Where it gets sticky is how I see a bunch of these done wrong. It can get a bit confusing depending on what program you use, since there are a bunch of 3rd party programs that work with twitter (ie twhirl and tweedeck being only two of many). Each of them have their own rules and ways of doing things, but the main way you post should always keep twitter itself in mind, and they are a bit pickier than those 3rd party programs. For instance I discovered today that twhirl doesn’t care how or where you put a reply in the message, but twitter is very picky about them. The safest best to do a follow Friday update is the following:

#followfriday @judel @jiction @this @that

That will work with ALL platforms and everyone involved will see it in their @replies and everyone will be able to click on name and visit their page. Following are incorrect ways I’ve seen the posts made and should be avoided.

#followfriday @ judel @ jiction @ this @ that <==notice spaces between @ and names – BAD
#followfriday @judel@jiction@this@that <==notice no spaces between each new @name – also BAD

The first wrong example does not register at all for anyone, since the space between the @ sign and the username negates it altogether. The second wrong example prevents twitter from recognizing it as anything other than a long string of characters, even though some 3rd party programs will show it as @replies. Remember, twitter must recognize it!!

Though I cannot verify the validity of twitter endorsements, I’ve been told that #ff is an invalid form of #followfriday. I have used the #ff because it’s shorter, as have many other users, but I do try to mostly use the more popular #followfriday.

Another thing I’ve noticed is when someone incorrectly reposts someone’s tweet (in other words RT). If you see an update you like and want your followers to see it as well, you do a RT. Basically that means copy/pasting that person’s message and typing an RT in front of it. But be careful not to put the RT directly in front of their @name or twitter won’t recognize it and that person won’t know you retweeted their message. For instance:

@judel thinks Hugh Jackman is hot as Wolverine.

If Sally Sue wanted to retweet that, she would put:

RT @judel thinks Hugh Jackman is hot as Wolverine.

She would NOT do the following:

RT@judel thinks Hugh Jackman is hot as Wolverine.

There MUST always be a space before and after any @name you put in a twitter post in order for twitter to recognize that user!!