Twitter: The difference between @replies and mentions

As a social media management agency, we’re unsurprisingly managing more and more of our clients on Twitter.

One area that we focus on is ensuring everyone fully understands the difference between @replies and mentions. It sounds pretty simple doesn’t it, but we’re suprised at the number of people who find it confusing, or aren’t even aware there is a difference. Twitter has , and although it’s useful, we like to think we have a better way of illustrating it.

Understanding this is the key to understanding who sees your content – especially useful for any customer service type activity, and on the flip side,  keeping some content between just you and the other person, and out of all your followers timelines.

Here’s our explanation:

If a user (let’s call him @Bob) posts a tweet that starts with @LovelyBrand (known as a ‘reply’ on Twitter), for example:

“@LovelyBrand I love your new android app”

It will appear…

…in the @LovelyBrand mentions list (but NOT their profile)
…in @Bob’s profile
…and in any profiles of those following both @LovelyBrand AND @Bob

———————————————————————–

If @Bob posts a tweet that includes @LovelyBrand anywhere else in the post – i.e. NOT at the start (also known as the ‘mention’), for example:

“I love the new @LovelyBrand android app”

It will appear…

…in the @LovelyBrand mentions list (but NOT their profile)
…in @Bob’s profile
…in the profiles of anyone following @Bob

———————————————————————–

If @LovelyBrand then directly replies to @Bob, for example:

“@Bob Thanks for the nice comment”

It will appear…

…in @LovelyBrand’s profile
…in @Bob’s mentions
…and in any timelines of those following both @LovelyBrand AND @Bob

———————————————————————–

If @LovelyBrand wanted to reply more publicly, they would mention @Bob, for example:

“Thanks @Bob for the nice comment”

It will then appear…

…in @LovelyBrand’s profile
…in @Bob’s mentions
…and in the timelines of anyone following @LovelyBrand