I’ve been using Twitter since February and in that time, I’ve come to some faulty assumptions that may have limited my ability to communicate with others. Tonight I’ve seen the light. I did a quick test and thought I’d share my findings with you.

Faulty Assumption #1
I always thought that if you tweeted someone’s name with the @ in front, your tweet would show up in their replies tab.

Example: So happy I got to meet @hjstrout earlier this month when I was in Austin.

NOT SO! Today, I did a quick experiment and asked a few peeps to help me in my quest. A tweet from @beckymccray with @cherylsmith999 in the middle of the sentence showed up in my update timeline, but NOT in my replies tab.

Faulty Assumption #2
I also thought that if I sent the same tweet to more than one person, both (or all) people would see the tweet in their replies, provided I used the @ sign before each name.

Example: @tawnypress @elliottjlb Can’t wait to talk with you both about the latest possibilities.

Again, NOT SO! Only the first person sees the tweet in their replies section.

What’s the Big Deal?
The number of tweets I’ve sent to multiple people may have fallen on deaf ears. When I’ve included a person’s name in the middle of a sentence, at least in some cases, it’s quite likely they’ve not seen that tweet.

Here’s Why:
The Twitter update timeline only goes back 10 pages. If you’re communicating with someone who has only a few active followers, they are probably seeing your tweets in their main timeline and it’s no big deal. However, if you’re communicating with someone who has a lot of followers, their update field may not be able to contain all the tweets aimed at them.

I used to be able to scroll through my 10 pages of updates and catch what everyone was saying. Now that I’m following nearly seven hundred people, I can’t scroll back far enough to pick up where I left off with my last reading. I’m missing conversations, observations and even some messages that contain my name.

Possible Solutions:
I could follow less people, but at this stage of the game, that doesn’t make sense for my objectives. Instead, I’ll use Twitter’s search capabilities to look up my user name without the @. At the top right of the side bar, there is an orange RSS button that says, “feed this query.” I’m using Google Reader to subscribe to the feed of my search so at least I won’t miss anything people say to me (or about me).

So what about you? Were you under the same faulty assumptions? If so, be sure to tell your followers about this. And finally, what other solutions are you using to listen to the growing list of people you’re following? Leave your comments below so we can continue the conversation.

Creative Commons photo by woordenaar.