Twitter has been around since 2006.

And what really frustrates me…

Is that so many people still screw up a really basic piece of

Twitter’s functionality.

Allow me to explain:

I have something I need to get off my chest, something I need everyone to know !

so I head to Twitter and I tweet this:

@Patriots I hate all of you.!

But there is a problem.!

I want everybody to know.!

But because the tweet started with an @ sign…!

ONLY the traitors people who follow BOTH me AND the Patriots will see this tweet.!

NOT all of my followers (and I have a lot)

Which is EXCEPTIONAL for certain situations.*

*But that's another Slideshare for another day.

But not this one.

So now a tweet like this:!

The @Patriots haven’t won a Super Bowl since they were caught cheating. #Justsaying #Truth

So now a tweet like this:!

Will show up to all 1,000,000+ of my followers

WHY?

Because @ is not the first character of the tweet:

The @Patriots haven’t won a Super Bowl since they were caught cheating. #Justsaying #Truth

When that happens, all of your followers see it no matter what else is in the tweet.

Let’s take a look at another example:

@wilfork75 really really really really really really really really annoys me

Again, only going to the LIMITED number of my followers who ALSO follow Vince Wilfork. !

NO GOOD!

EVERYONE MUST KNOW!

But it’s an easy fix:!

.@wilfork75 really really really really really really really really annoys me

.@wilfork75 really really really really really really really really annoys me

See that period at the beginning?!

That is the most misunderstood piece of punctuation on Twitter.!

.

Now that I tweeted starting with a period…

ALL of my followers can understand just how much Vince pisses me off.

So clearly this is a really important mechanic.

And to be honest, I am shocked that Twitter hasn’t done a better job explaining it to

new users.

If I ran things, here is what I would do.

The first time you used the @ message, this would appear:

Pretty cool right?

Hey one last thing.

I’m actually not all about people using this mechanic all the time.

I would prefer that you just change the content up a little.

The @Patriots haven’t won a Super Bowl since they were caught cheating. #Justsaying #Truth

Just find a different way to structure the sentence.!

It looks and feels a lot more natural.

But if you absolutely have to start a tweet with someone’s handle.

Now you know what to do.

;)