Twitter Is Like....

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Twitter is an online social networking tool in which users post 140 character updates (tweets) of what is going on in their lives along with links to things they think are interesting, funny, or useful to their followers ('following' being essentially what 'friending' is on other sites). People use twitter in many ways, some as a newsfeed by following prominent people or networks, some as a pseudo-chatroom by limiting their followers and whom they follow to close friends and family, and some as a microblog for updating people about the work they are doing and their personal lives.
  1. Twitter Is Illegal In China
  2. Twitter Likes Not Working 2020
  3. Twitter Like Bot
  4. Twitter Likes Not Working
  5. Twitter Is Like The Baker

'twitter users'

Twitter Alternatives. As a social network infamous for its strict character limits on posts and feeds that update in real-time, Twitter has grown into one of the most ubiquitous social networks and websites on the entire Internet, used as a source for communication and news alike.

@mymom
follows @me and @mybrother

@mycat
follows @me

  1. Twitter users are younger, more educated and more likely to be Democrats than general public. Adult Twitter users differ in significant ways from the overall U.S. Adult population. Most notably, Twitter users are much younger than the average U.S adult and are also more likely than the general public to have a college degree.
  2. Simultaneously, Twitter says that the CPE (cost per engagement) is down 12%. Twitter points to improved click-through rates and audience growth for these numbers. If your Twitter marketing strategy could benefit from what looks like cheaper and more engaging ads, you might want to check out our guide to using Twitter ads.
  3. The labels Twitter uses on Donald Trump's claims of voter fraud are now appearing in memes, and brands like Oreo and Burger King are adding their own flavors.

@totalstranger
doesn't follow any of us and we do not follow her

Twitter users choose who they do and do not follow. They have total control of what tweets they see in their home feed. When I refer to your 'Home feed', I'm referring to what you see when you first open the twitter app (or open twitter in the browser). This is different from your personal twitter feed (essentially your 'profile' twitter.com/yourusername or the 'Me' tab on mobile) which contains all tweets you have created (aside from replies to others, see section below on @ replies. You can have an unlimited amount of followers, but only follow a select few people if you want, making it easy to stay in touch with the people you care to stay in touch with. You cannot control who follows you unless you set your account to 'private', in which case you would need to approve every new follower. Generally, even if you have a public account with lot of strangers following you, it doesn't alter your experience very much as most will not directly engage with you. (FYI these are fake twitter names, my (the author's) actual twitter username is @jessicahische.)

who sees what

the person tweeting is pictured • their tweet is the large text
very important information is in red
me Jessica Hische
I am a compulsive oversharer!

• anyone that follows @me will see this in their Home feed

• this will show up on my profile (Me) page

fanperson John McGraphicdesign
@me OMG ME TOO! It's like a disease!

• because I do not follow @fanperson, this does not show up on my Home feed, instead this shows up in my Notifications (Mentions) feed

• because @fanperson put my username at the beginning (this is called a reply or @reply), it does not show up on @fanperson's followers' Home feeds, unless they follow us both

• because this tweet begins with my username, it does not show up on their profile (Me) page

me Jessica Hische
@mybrother hey bro, que pasa?

by putting another person's username at the start of a statement, it limits who sees it

• @me, @mymom, and @mybrother see this on our Home feeds because we all follow each other

• people that follow both @me and @mybrother will see this on their Home feed

• people that only follow one of us will not see this on their Home feed

• @mybrother will see this in his Notifications feed as well as his Home feed because we follow each other

mybrother Jessica's Brother
Not much, @me. What's good?

• anyone that follows @mybrother will see this on their Home feed, whether they follow @me or do not follow @me

If a username is not at the start of a statement, everyone that follows @mybrother can see it

• I will see this in my Notifications feed because my username is used within the tweet

This is generally the incorrect way to reply. There are times when you want to share a reply with your followers (e.g. if your reply contains something useful for your followers) but not in this circumstance or similar circumstances

mymom Jessica's Mom
.@mybrother only ate pizza from age 5 to 25. #turtlepower

• if you DO want to share a reply with your followers, you can put any character before their username (typically a period) and this allows all of your followers to see it. It takes the person's username and puts it 'in the middle' of the tweet.

me Jessica Hische
@mymom @mybrother so. full. of. pizza.

• @me, @mymom, and @mybrother see this on our Home feeds because we all follow each other

• people that follow @me and @mymom (both of us) will see this on their Home feeds

• only the first user mentioned at the beginning and my username control who sees this tweet, any users mentioned after, even directly after, does not affect this

totalstranger Mary O'Internet
Have you seen @me‘s new zany website thingy??

• because I do not follow @totalstranger, this does not show up on my Home feed

• instead this shows up in my Notifications feed—as long as your username is somewhere in their post, it will be in your Notifications feed

• because my username is in the middle of the statement, this does show up on @totalstranger's followers' Home feeds

• because my username is in the middle of the statement, this does show up on @totalstranger's profile (Me) page

• @totalstranger does not follow me, but can still @mention me (use my username) in a tweet and I will see it in my Notifications feed

me Jessica Hische
This morning @mycat puked on my bed, not cool.
reply • retweet • like
mycat Billy Kibbles Hische
@me I iz sorries!
reply • retweet • like
me Jessica Hische
@mycat It's ok, you are still my everything <3
reply • retweet • like

• @mymom @mybrother and @fanperson do not see this conversation on their Home feeds because they do not follow both of us, but they do see my original tweet

• @mycat and @me will see each others tweets in our Notifications feed as well as our Home feeds because we follow each other

• all users can see all replies to a tweet by clicking on it—the replies are threaded together chronologically, so you can see the full conversation surrounding any given tweet. Usually the only people who do this are those participating in the conversation or those interested in what others might have said on a topic. For instance, if someone tweeted 'Any recommendations for a restaurant in Mitte, Berlin?', others interested in those recommendations might click to see what has been said. There is a difference between 'replying to' a tweet and simply beginning a tweet with a person's username. The former will keep the conversation in tact, and the latter will not.

• because you can see a reply thread by clicking on a tweet, any tweets that you write are not 100% private even if directed at another user. The only way to make sure a conversation is 100% private is to exchange direct messages (see the Messages tab in the browser or on mobile)

Direct Messaging

Direct Messages (Messages) are private tweets that are exchanged between two users that follow each other. You cannot message someone that does not follow you and vice versa. Direct messages are the only private way to converse on twitter. 'DM's' as they were once called (now probably just called Messages) are basically like emails. They are unsearchable on twitter.

Retweeting

me Jessica Hische
Check out this cat vid! tinyurl.com/2funnycats
me Jessica Hische retweeted by mybrother
Check out this cat vid! tinyurl.com/2funnycats
reply • retweet • like
mymom Jessica's Mom
RT @me Check out this cat vid! tinyurl.com/2funnycats
Retweeting is used when you want to share a tweet from another user your followers (for instance something you found funny or a link to a helpful article). There are two ways to do this, a Retweet (which just reposts a user's tweet to your followers) or a Quote Tweet in which you comment along with a link to their original tweet. Before Twitter built in this retweet feature, users would copy someone's tweet and write 'RT' before it so you would know it was a retweet. You still see this method showing up occasionally by early Twitter users, though it's increasingly uncommon.

hashtags

fanperson John McGraphicdesign
Having tons of fun at the #imaginaryconference!
Hashtags are a way to label tweets so that other users can see tweets on the same topic. Hashtags contain no spaces or punctuation and begin with a '#' symbol. Many times at events like conferences or concerts, the organizers will tell attendees to add a particular hash tag to their tweets to gather opinions about the event and unite people at the same event.
me Jessica Hische
Paula Abdul & Color Me Badd was #myfirstconcert! You?
Twitter users create trending topics by using hash tags. For instance, a user might create a hashtag as a fun way to start a conversation.
mybrother Jessica's Brother
When will this cough stop?? #imeanreally. #srsly. #cough.
Lastly, hashtags are used to punctuate statements or jokes on twitter. Some twitter users make sentence-long hashtags for comic effect.

Twitter Vs. Facebook

Twitter is different from Facebook because it has an opt-in take on friending vs. an opt-out like Facebook. If you accept a friend request on Facebook, you automatically 'follow' each other. This means that if you have 200 Facebook friends, you can potentially see 200 people's news in your feed (they have algorithms which narrow it down to who you most likely want to see, but still. If there is someone annoying in your feed you have to opt-out of following them or 'hide' them). On Twitter, you can be followed by 2,000 people but only see 50 people in your feed—50 people you CHOSE to follow. The main difference between the two is that Twitter is much more simplified. There is a character limit to posts, no complicated profiles, relationship statuses, etc. Because of this, Twitter has become a top choice for professionals that want a social / semi-work-related network through which they can share work news (and not feel smarmy) alongside personal news. Many people (myself included) link their twitter account to their Facebook account so that they can instantly cross-post to Facebook from Twitter.

In Conclusion

Twitter is awesome, but while it seems like a relatively simple service, it is quite nuanced. I hope this site helped you or someone you know get acquainted with Twitter so that you can stop writing your tweets incorrectly, accidentally airing your dirty laundry to the internet at large. I am not an employee of Twitter, just an avid (understatement) user of the service that wanted to lend a hand to Twitter n00bs. This site is not a comprehensive guide as Twitter is always adding new subtle features to make their service more useful and user-friendly, but this should demystify most of the basics. You can always visit support.twitter.com to find out more.

There are half a dozen forms of engagement and interaction you can have on Twitter, but the newest is the like. If that sounds odd, given that Facebook likes are the standard for social interaction these days, you're not wrong. The reason is that Twitter recently changed their Favorite button into a Like button, to better reflect the way people were using it.

Rather than just prattle on about likes, I'm going to go over each form of Twitter engagement, and then come back to the topic of likes and how you can use them.

Tweet Likes

Formerly known as favorites, Twitter likes are the simplest and yet previously most mysterious form of engagement on Twitter. They don't do all that much on their own. Tweets have a like counter, and that counter shows how many people have liked the tweet. In contrast to Facebook, Twitter likes do not show a list of the people who have liked the tweet.

Likes do a few other things when you like a tweet. For one thing, when you like a tweet, it appears in your list of likes. Did you know you have a list of likes? It's true! If you sign into Twitter and go to your own profile, you'll see a list of 'tabs' up at the top. These are Tweets, Following, Followers, and Likes. Tweets is the default, and has the sub-tabs of Tweets, Tweets & Replies, and Photos & Videos. The first is your default 'filtered' feed of everything you've posted publicly. The second is a less filtered version with replies to people – more on that later – and the third is a filter that only shows images and videos you've tweeted.

Anyways, if you click on over to the Likes tab, you will see a feed of all of the tweets you have liked or favorited in reverse order. This plays into something I'll discuss later, which is one of the possible uses for liking tweets, and ways people use likes.

Additionally, of course, when you like a tweet, the poster of that tweet is notified. If you like a retweet, the person who retweeted it will be notified, because you're technically liking the tweet that person made that includes the retweet, not the original tweet itself.

Buzzfeed, of all places, did a study of why people favorite tweets, back when they were called favorites. They also called favorites 'one of the most complex and cryptic forms of online communication.' That's a tall order for what is, essentially, just a thumbs up.

And that's it.

Reasons People Like Tweets (And Why You Should Too)

To bring things back to likes specifically, we can think about Buzzfeed's study. They called favorites, what are now likes, mystifying. Different people, it turns out, use them for different purposes. Some people took the term 'favorite' seriously and were very stingy about handing them out. Others, steeped in Facebook culture, used them as a light equivalent to likes.

Now that they ARE likes, well, that usage has gotten a lot more popular. Still, let's look at the various ways you can use likes.

1: Bookmarking Tweets. I mentioned that you can see a list of all of the tweets you've liked at any time, right? Well, that's how some people use it; as a list of entertaining things they can refer to any time, to re-live memories, refer to particular posts later, and generally just have on hand to reference. I like to use it to 'bookmark' useful guides for later, as well.

2: Expressing Appreciation. This is perhaps the purest form of a like that could exist. The Twitter like, in this case, is literally just a statement saying 'I liked this post.' There's nothing more to it, and nothing less. Some people use the social network literally, after all. These are probably even the same people who changed how they use the button when it changed from favorite to like, even though the button functionally didn't change at all.

3: Showing Acknowledgement. This is, if anything, even less engagement than an expression of appreciation as above. It's nothing more than a statement saying 'I saw this post.' Sometimes it's used for one-way messaging; as in, someone @mentions you and you like it to acknowledge that you saw it, but either don't want to post it to your feed, or don't have anything to say to continue the conversation.

4: Automatic Support. This is something that brands do, and something that I've written about before. Some brands will set up bots to monitor certain hashtag uses, keywords, or other Twitter search results, looking for new content. When that content appears, the bot will like the post. Sometimes it does more, sometimes not; regardless, it's an automatic process.

5: Fishing for Follows. Some people use likes as a 'notice me' poke. They're liking a post from someone in the hopes that the person whose tweet they liked will go and investigate the account of the person liking their post. The ideal end result is a mutual follow, but that's rarely the actual outcome. Most of the time, the liker gets nothing and the likee just accepts the like and moves on.

6: Passive Aggressive Hate Likes. Surprisingly enough, this happens; when someone is agitated or angry at someone else, they will like all of the other party's posts as a way of saying 'I could say something here but I won't.' Carrie Fisher actually has some interesting examples of this; she will like and retweet insulting posts just as a way to silently sass the poster, as if to say that the words don't hurt her.

7: Non-Verbal Communication. There are a lot of 'shy' users on Twitter, who actively monitor their feeds and follow people, but don't post or reply themselves. Some of them just have nothing to add, while others feel as though they aren't 'allowed' to contribute to conversations amongst elites or celebrities. Thus, all they do is like.

8: Flagging for Future Theft. Unfortunately, this happens on occasion. A user will like popular content, just to save that content for later. A week, a month, a year down the line, that user reposts the exact same content without editing, to make it look as though they are the ones who came up with the content. Unfortunately, there isn't much of any enforcement on the low-key plagiarism going on here.

9: Personal Engagement. Sometimes, someone will like your post but not retweet it because, while they personally like the post, they don't think it fits with their own content plan. They don't want to send your tweet to their audience for fear of losing some of said audience, but they appreciate the tweet nonetheless.

10: Affection Expression. Sometimes, when you like someone, you pay attention to what they have to say and you digitally stalk them to keep tabs on them. Some people religiously like any post made by their friends, family, or crushes, regardless of content. They do it to show support, to try to get noticed, or just because it lets them feel a connection.

11: Setting a Reminder. Sometimes you see an interesting post you want to read, but you don't have time on the go. Rather than try to remember the link or lose it forever, some people just like the post. They will then, later, go back to their likes and read the links they had set aside. Remember, you can always un-like a liked post just as easily as you liked it. There's not even a notification for it.

12: Friendly Support. This is similar to the Twitter crush idea, but it's more of a mutually supportive relationship amongst friends. I, personally, have many friends who are business owners, some of whom are struggling to gain traction. I like to like their posts as a way to show additional support, and to 'seed' likes so that people who don't want to be first can feel free to like the posts as well.

13: Just a Whim. Honestly, some people don't really know what they're doing, and as a consequence, they will just like posts more or less randomly. You can also throw in drug users here, people who browse while high or drunk, and don't quite have control over what they're doing at any given time.

14: Showing Sympathy. The sympathy like is a controversial topic. Last year, Facebook was rumored to be working on a 'dislike button' that showed sympathy for negative happenings, but didn't require a post. The idea is to make expressions of sympathy easier and less awkward. Of course, their actual implementation is rather… childish.

15: Social Aggregation. Sometimes there are people or entities that monitor when tweets in certain niches – like with the hashtag monitoring link above – reach certain thresholds. One such is Favstar, which looks for funny posts that reach a certain level of popularity, and then 'awards' that user a favstar, simultaneously showing that post to the Favstar follower base. Perhaps they should rebrand, though. I guess LikeStar doesn't have the same ring to it.

16: Contest Entrance. A lot of social media contests, either just on Twitter or using a cross-social entry method like Gleam, require follows/likes/retweets to enter. A lot of people like a lot of tweets that they don't actually like, just to enter contests and have a chance to win prizes.

17: Complete Accident. Twitter for mobile has gone through a bunch of redesigns over the years, and sometimes during a design phase, they have buttons fairly close to one another. It's fairly common for people who aren't precise with their fine motor skills to like tweets they don't actually want to like, just because the buttons are so close together.

Twitter

18: Brand Reputation Aggregation. Some brands will like any positive testimonial they receive, so they have one aggregated feed of all the positive press they get. They can then use this later, in marketing or just as social proof.

Other Functionality

Twitter has been making a lot of changes (especially Q4 2015). Here is a quick up-to-date breakdown of retweets, mentions, and DM's.

Recap 1/4: Tweet Retweets

Retweets on Twitter, in this case, means pressing the actual retweet button at the bottom of a post. When you retweet a tweet, the original poster of that tweet is notified. The tweet is posted to your followers and your feed. It is shown as the original poster's information, with a small green 'you retweeted' at the top, where 'you' is your username.

Some people don't like this form of retweet because it puts someone else's profile information in the feeds of their followers. It takes away from them, but realistically that's not a bad thing. People tend to dislike feeds that are just 'me me me' all the time. People also tend to dislike feeds that are just memes all the time, but that's another story entirely.

When you press the retweet button, you are given the opportunity to add a message. If you do, that message, posted by you, appears in your feed instead. The tweet you retweeted shows up below it, slightly indented, as a smaller version of its former self. This is a more ideal version of the retweet, and allows you to promote others without demoting yourself.

Twitter

Recap 2/4: Tweet Manual Retweets

Manual retweets have somewhat fallen out of style amongst some users. Rather than using Twitter's retweet functionality, a manual retweet is a copy and paste of the original tweet. You copy and paste the same message, put it in quotes, and add RT: to the front of it. You can also add your own commentary or hashtags if you have the space.

Manual retweets have fallen somewhat out of style simply because Twitter implemented the two-form retweet button. The ability to add your own comment – full length, not just whatever leftover characters remain in a manual RT – meant the manual RT lost most of its functionality.

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Manual retweets do not notify the original poster unless you @mention them as well. Most people will RT @username 'original tweet here' (added message). This is fine, but again, a lot of people are starting to prefer the retweet button, both for ease and for space.

Recap 3/4: Twitter Mentions

A mention is when you put someone's username in your tweet with the preceding @ symbol. This sends a notification to that user, so you can use it to gain their attention and talk to them directly, but without using direct messages.

Twitter

18: Brand Reputation Aggregation. Some brands will like any positive testimonial they receive, so they have one aggregated feed of all the positive press they get. They can then use this later, in marketing or just as social proof.

Other Functionality

Twitter has been making a lot of changes (especially Q4 2015). Here is a quick up-to-date breakdown of retweets, mentions, and DM's.

Recap 1/4: Tweet Retweets

Retweets on Twitter, in this case, means pressing the actual retweet button at the bottom of a post. When you retweet a tweet, the original poster of that tweet is notified. The tweet is posted to your followers and your feed. It is shown as the original poster's information, with a small green 'you retweeted' at the top, where 'you' is your username.

Some people don't like this form of retweet because it puts someone else's profile information in the feeds of their followers. It takes away from them, but realistically that's not a bad thing. People tend to dislike feeds that are just 'me me me' all the time. People also tend to dislike feeds that are just memes all the time, but that's another story entirely.

When you press the retweet button, you are given the opportunity to add a message. If you do, that message, posted by you, appears in your feed instead. The tweet you retweeted shows up below it, slightly indented, as a smaller version of its former self. This is a more ideal version of the retweet, and allows you to promote others without demoting yourself.

Recap 2/4: Tweet Manual Retweets

Manual retweets have somewhat fallen out of style amongst some users. Rather than using Twitter's retweet functionality, a manual retweet is a copy and paste of the original tweet. You copy and paste the same message, put it in quotes, and add RT: to the front of it. You can also add your own commentary or hashtags if you have the space.

Manual retweets have fallen somewhat out of style simply because Twitter implemented the two-form retweet button. The ability to add your own comment – full length, not just whatever leftover characters remain in a manual RT – meant the manual RT lost most of its functionality.

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Manual retweets do not notify the original poster unless you @mention them as well. Most people will RT @username 'original tweet here' (added message). This is fine, but again, a lot of people are starting to prefer the retweet button, both for ease and for space.

Recap 3/4: Twitter Mentions

A mention is when you put someone's username in your tweet with the preceding @ symbol. This sends a notification to that user, so you can use it to gain their attention and talk to them directly, but without using direct messages.

This type of engagement comes in two forms; the 'private' and the public. I put private in quotes because it's not truly private, like a direct message. Rather, it's just hidden from your public feed. Users can still see it by clicking on the 'tweets & replies' tab in your feed, or by watching the conversation directly in either your feed or that of someone else you mentioned.

The only difference between a public and a private mention is whether or not the tweet starts with the @ symbol. If the tweet starts with it – that is, the very first character is a @ with a username attached – the tweet is a reply. You can reply directly to specific tweets, or you can reply to a user in general. When replying to specific tweets, people can see the comment you made by clicking on the tweet and expanding it to see replies.

Public mentions just have the @mention in a different space. If you're making a reply to someone and want that reply to be public, the most commonly accepted way of doing it is to add a . before the @. A tweet starting with .@username may count as a reply and show up in that tweet's feed, but it also shows up in your audience feed just as a post you made would.

Recap 4/4: Twitter Direct Messages

Direct messages break all the rules. They are one to one private messages through Twitter as a platform, from one account to another. They don't work the same way as tweets, and they have a much higher character limit as of just recently. They are most often used as private messaging and as direct customer support in a private setting.

Twitter Likes Not Working 2020

There's not much more to direct messages. If you've ever used email or any web forum with accounts, you're familiar enough with the concept. If you somehow haven't, think of it like Facebook messages, without the live chat interface.

Twitter Like Bot

How Do You Use Likes?

Twitter Likes Not Working

After this update, do you treat them the same as favorites, or are you liking more tweets than before? Let us know in the comments below!

Twitter Is Like The Baker

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