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You know the one thing that sucks about Twitter? There’s no manual! It can feel a little overwhelming getting started – there seems to be so much jargon and slang – but it’s really not that bad at all.
- Twitter RT is ReTweet
- Twitter HT is Heard Through
- Twitter OH is OverHeard
- Twitter Replies Start with @
- Twitter Hash Tags
Twitter RT is ReTweet
If you hear something that you want to retweet, like breaking news or something funny, you can ReTweet it. It’s like repeating, only since we’re on Twitter, we’re being funny about it and calling it ReTweeting. Here’s an example:
Twitter RT Example
@FBueller tweeted that there were Houston Police Department cops checking stickers. @Marc1919 (another Houston resident) saw that and retweeted it by adding “RT @FBueller:” at the front. That way, everyone knows who Marc heard it from – it’s like giving credit to FBueller.
This gets FBueller’s message heard by more people, because there’s probably people following Marc1919 who aren’t following FBueller.
If I wanted to retweet this, I would write a tweet that said:
RT @marc1919 @FBueller: FYI...2 HPD motorcycle cops are checking stickers at Durham and I-10.
That way I’m giving credit to people along the way. If you run out of room, just credit the original person (in this case, FBueller.)
If you don’t have too many followers, and you’re thinking about retweeting somebody famous like @SherriEShepherd who has kajillions of followers, you might wonder whether you should bother. After all, they already have a lot of followers, right? Well, if you find it that interesting, go ahead and retweet it anyway, because not everybody in your circle will be following the same people you follow.
Twitter HT is Heard Through
HT is like RT, but you’re repeating something that wasn’t actually Tweeted. It’s not used as often.
Twitter OH is OverHeard
When you’re hanging out with a bunch of friends in a bar or at a party, you’re bound to hear somebody say something funny – or stupid – or both. OH is slang for something you overheard. Here’s an example from @NMyra:
Twitter OH is OverHeard
Don’t include the person’s name when you OH. OH is for things that are funny, but would be embarrassing to whoever said them out loud.
Twitter Replies Start with @
When you want to reply to someone, start your tweet with their name at the very beginning, like this:
Twitter Reply
@CorryJoe had sent a tweet with my name in it, so I replied back to her by starting with her name.
You don’t have to be following someone in order to reply to them. You can reply to anyone, anytime – even if they haven’t sent a message to you in the first place. However, if they’re not following YOU, then your message won’t show up on their home page on Twitter. Instead, it’ll show up on their replies tab (on my Twitter home page, it’s the tab that says @BrentO.) The only way to make it onto their home page is if they’re following you.
Replies in Twitter aren’t like replies in email: you can’t easily see the threads. You can’t go back to see what message someone was replying to. This makes things confusing when you’re following hundreds of people and sending lots of tweets, because you’re not quite sure what the other person’s talking about. There are some Twitter clients who claim to be able to track replies and threads, but frankly, they don’t work well.
Replies are not private – anyone can search Twitter and see replies unless your profile is private.
If someone asks a question, and you want to see who’s sent in replies, search for their name. For example, if I (@BrentO) ask a question and you want to see who replied to them, just search for @BrentO and you’ll see all of the replies back to me.
You can also reply to more than one person at once by putting several names at the beginning of the tweet.
Twitter Hash Tags (#)
When there’s a hot topic going on, people will include a phrase in their tweet to make it easier to find. For example, during the Professional Association for SQL Server conference, we include #SQLPASS in our tweets so that we can search Twitter for other people using that tag, and find out where they’re at.
Some common hash tags include:
- #FollowFriday – every Friday, people send out recommendations of their favorite Tweeps who they think you should follow.
- #TCOT – Top Conservatives on Twitter.
- For more hash tags, check out Hashtags.org.
More of My Twitter Articles
- Top 10 Reasons I’m Not Following You On Twitter – wondering why nobody’s following you back?
- Top 10 Reasons I *AM* Following You – how I pick who gets past my virtual bouncer.
- Twitter T-Shirts and Coffee Cups – you can get Twitter shirts with the fail whale, or get your own Twitter profile on a shirt.
- Twitter RT, OH, HT: The Slang Explained – I talk about what these cryptic terms mean and how to use them correctly.
- Twitter Client Demo Video – I show you TweetDeck, Seesmic Desktop and Orsiso, three different Twitter clients.
- How to Make a Bigger Twitter Profile – when people glance at your Twitter profile, they make a snap decision about whether to follow you. Give them the information they need to make a good decision.
- Browse All Posts Tagged “Twitter”
- How To Start a Blog – decide why you’re blogging, because that’ll affect the type of blog you start and how you build it.
- Browse All Posts Tagged “Blogging”
Want More Blogging & Twitter Tips? Follow me on Twitter. I tweet whenever I post a new blog entry, so you’ll always know when I’ve got new stuff. See you online!
how do you delete tweets?
On the individual tweet page, click on the trash can next to the tweet. (This only works on your own tweets.)
Thanks, wasn’t familiar with “HT”–shouldn’t “via” be used instead for sake of convention? Another good hash tag is #musicmonday.
“Convention”? You’re on Twitter, man. Convention is out the window, hahaha.
how do I know when someone repleis me, without going to @myusername…?
Mabel – that’s the only way to do it in the web site. The alternative is to use a Twitter client like TweetDeck or Seesmic. I’ve reviewed them here to show you what they’re like:
http://www.brentozar.com/archive/2009/04/twitter-client-comparison-tweetdeck-seesmic-and-orsiso/
I did not know HT…thank you!
How about if I want to RT something and at the same time replyit or make someone that’s not following me read it?
I really need step by step instructions on how to retweet something on twitter. @usherraymondiv on twitter there is a contest on I need to know what exactly to do. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it.
When you’re looking at their tweet on Twitter.com, hover your mouse over it. You’ll see a Retweet link at the right side. Click it. Voila!
hello somebody tell me abt hash tags in brief,
Atucaly i my new on twitter any body pls tell me how to operate it & wht exactly that is & Tell me i realy appreicate it.
If you read on my free Simple Twitter Book I’ve got plenty of info in there to get you started. Hope that helps!
While using RT on twitter do you have to re-type the whole tweet as it had appeared initially or does it get inserted automatically the moment you enter the “@” link of the person who wrote the initial tweet….???
Fantana – yeah, if you do it manually, you have to copy/paste the tweet yourself. It doesn’t happen automatically.
I’ve been seeing MT on certain tweets. Do you know what this means?
Modified Tweet.
Thank YOU! =)
thanks for all the info….really helped …follow me >> @iamporgy
New to Twitter. Wondering why my replies won’t show on recipient’s replies thread (under their tweet), but other people’s will (even though the recipient is not following them). Reply will show in my timeline on my profile, but when I reply to a tweet by someone else, it doesn’t show anywhere! Did they get it? Tearing my hair out!
I’m not an expert on reply threading in tweets, but I have noticed that it doesn’t always include everything. If you think about the scale of tracking and presenting reply threads, it does seem like a pretty complicated thing to quickly track and display across a large volume of servers.
I wouldn’t let the reply thread view worry you– when you mention people by using their alias, they’ll be able to see your tweet in their mention stream. That always works *much* more reliably than viewing message reply threads.
i see people writing >>> or <<< in their tweets what does that mean
Jess – it’s just an attention-grabbing visual art piece.
What does tcot mean? I see it a lot…
Top Conservatives on Twitter.
[...] If I wanted to retweet this, I would write a tweet that said: RT @marc1919 @FBueller: FYI…2 HPD motorcycle cops are checking stickers at Durham and I-10. Twitter RT, OH, ETC – The Meaning of Twitter Slang | Brent Ozar PLF [...]