27 Jan The Period in a Twitter Conversation
Have you ever been on Twitter and you have seen a period before a handle and its tweet? Since when has punctuation come before a sentence rather than at the end? Additionaly, who knew there was grammar to a 140-character sentence?
Twitter is social media outlet that has many secrets and this is one of them. Consider this trick as a privacy publicity thing. Adding a period before your handle makes your tweet more public.
Private Tweets
When directing a reply or mention at someone, people usually start the tweet with just a handle.
Example: “@JohnDoe Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, at vestibulum diam. “
This tweet is directed at John Doe and John Doe only.
Public Tweets
If you want to turn a private tweet into a public tweet for John Doe AND all of your followers, you must add a period before the handle. This creates a community-style tweet. Think of this style of tweet as shouting something to John Doe across the room filled with your friends and family.
Note: This can be also done by adding any character before @JohnDoe, but the period is most common for Twitter users — plus its less glaring.
Example: “.@JohnDoe Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, at vestibulum diam. “
…and voila! Your tweet is now visible to all of your followers!
For more information and useful tips, be sure to review the Twitter Help Center.
