I started the following conversation on Twitter today:

It sparked some great discussion on Twitter about why some people use this method and why it is valuable for some.  It also sparked conversation around why it was indeed a noisy method used on Twitter.  I felt it appropriate to do a blog post to illustrate more clearly what I was referring to and also to continue the conversation to see what you think about the method I am referring to.

Let’s first dissect the various types of sharing / conversational Tweets as they relate to @ replies.

First, there is the basic @ reply done right. This is when someone sends YOU a message and you reply back to THEM.  It’s a one-on-one conversation that will still happen publicly but by placing the @ reply at the beginning, the only people who see it are you, the person it went to and anyone following both of you.  Otherwise, it will not show up in the public feed.

The next type of @ reply is the one where you want to share the value of what the person said with your Twitter followers and add your own commentary of sorts. This should be used in moderation as it does add a lot of noise to your Twitter account.  This is most often done as a re-tweet with the commentary at the beginning.  This is done whether the Tweet was directed at them via an @ reply or just something they saw in their Twitter stream.

The reason that this type of @ reply is good is because it contains a complete thought plus the Twitterers own thoughts.  There is no guesswork involved, there is no chasing the conversation thread back and people reading the Tweet ‘get it’ quickly.

Where we start to move into the pet peeve Tweets is when we see Tweets in our Home stream that clearly do not need to be there. These Tweets consist of conversations that provide no real value to other people, conversations that will be too difficult for someone to grasp quickly and confusing conversation.  It’s sort of like being at a party and being pulled into a group of people having a conversation.  You have to scramble to catch up or stand there and scratch your head.

I’m going to illustrate a few examples of these types of Tweets from my Home feed right now.  I am not posting these to illustrate that how these particular Tweeters are Tweeting is wrong but rather point out the types of Tweets that I feel have value and the types of Tweets that I feel create noise instead.  The beauty of social media is that everyone is going to use it differently and have preferences as to how they receive information.

This particular Tweet (above) was sent by ‘blogomomma’ to Lori specifically.  Instead of doing a re-tweet and response at the beginning, a less noisy approach would have been to simply reply to that person with: @blogomomma – Um … Me hehe!! That would have sent the Tweet to just ‘blogomomma’ and anyone following the two of them versus sending it to everyone who follows Lori.

This Tweet (above) is an example of a re-tweet without context.  This Tweet went out to everyone who follows Scott but without knowing the conversation, you don’t know what is hilarious.  In order to find out, you’d have to trace the conversation back.  A less noisy way would have been to either @ reply directly to the person or re-tweet it with context and commentary.

This Tweet (above) is another example of a conversation that is public but a bit hard to follow.  To reduce noise, Sue could have put the @ reply first and sent it only to Sukie and anyone who follows the two of them.

Why This Conversation is Important

I like to know how other people use Twitter and how it’s working for them.  I also like to share how I use Twitter in case it is helpful for others.  Sometimes, we don’t even realize there is another way to do something so once we see it illustrated, it sparks conversation around the use of a tool.

So, I encourage you to leave a comment answering this question:

What do you feel is value vs. noise when it comes to @ replies and 1-on-1 conversations?