Saying thank you on Twitter (but avoiding a very common mistake)

Twitter is a great environment to sing the praises of a company or person who has helped you or has provided a product or service you are especially pleased with. It is quick, unfussy and effective at spreading the good news and positive PR. When possible, grabbing a few quick photos and adding these to the message helps to boost its impact in a "show and tell" way. It couldn't be more obvious or simple, could it?

Here is a good example: Brandon Town FC have shared their thanks with their Twitter account's followers, literally as it happens. It cost them nothing and at the same time helped Omar Park Homes with free PR which they can in turn retweet to their own 2,000+ followers.

However there is a common mistake many people make that will put a massive damper on the effectiveness of a thank-you message.

The mistake is to start your tweet with the account name of the person/business you are mentioning. This is a natural mistake if you don't realise how Twitter works - after all why wouldn't you want to put the name of the person you are thanking first so they are prominent in your message?!

To understand this you need to appreciate how Twitter constructs the timeline displayed on your account's home page. This is composed primarily of a chronological list of posts from every account you follow (with a few extras throw in by Twitter). There is one major exception though - it will only include posts that start with "@username" if you also follow the account being referred to.

For example, if @jenny_brown posts "@peter_paint did a wonderful job decorating my lounge here are some pictures..." the tweet will only appear on the timeline of people who follow BOTH @jenny_brown's AND @peter_paint's accounts. It will still be visible to people who happen to look at @jenny_brown's account and it will be returned in searches using the words involved, but what are the chances of that... I'd say a little above zero.

In this example Ahmed congratulates @NorthStarRoast but it is likely that almost all of his followers will not see this message because he placed the account name at the start of his message.

A simple (if slightly inelegant) solution is to place a full stop/period before the account name, though it would be better to restructure the sentence to "Congratulations to @NorthStarRoast for opening..."

Of course if you only want your thanks to be directed to the person involved or you simply aren't interested in maximising its exposure, then do put the account name at the front of your post, but other than this you should avoid this to maximise the number of people who will see your message.

To further explore how tweets appear, take a look at Twitter's support page https://support.twitter.com/articles/119138.

Martin Soroka - @Tweet4MoreBiz