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Two Twitter Tricks

For Content Sellers, Storytellers, Serial RTers and You

By Made in DNAPublished 7 years ago Updated 3 years ago 3 min read
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By now, most people know all the tricks there are to Twitter, but there are still a few out there some people haven't caught on to yet. So, here are two tricks for content providers/sellers, storytellers, serial RTers and YOU!

Before I get started, I should tell you that my main interfaces to Twitter are the Chrome web browser, and (depending on the device I'm using), the official Android/Apple apps. Nothing fancier. It should go without saying that other apps or computer programs may have their own little ways and/or tricks for doing similar.

The Art of Self-reply

Anchored thread tweets.

For those longer than one-tweet (140-character) posts, there's really only one solution: the self-reply. Now most users know about the self-reply, but not everyone uses it well or to its fullest potential.

The biggest "mistake" most users make when replying to themselves is leaving their Twitter user account name in the reply. There is no need to do this. (Moreover, it robs you of precious character count.) To get yourself started, reply to one of your own tweets, but delete your name and the "at sign" and write your post.

The first tweet (which normally drops lower and lower in your timeline) becomes an anchor to which all the other tweets are connected to. You then need to reply to the very last tweet in the thread to continue. Do not reply to your anchor tweet, or you'll only succeed in creating a mess of one-off replies to yourself.

At first, it will not be clear that all the tweets are connected. To check that they are, simply click on the anchor (the very first tweet), and what should appear is an easy-to-read, top-down thread. (See image above.)

This method is great for longer tweets, threads, and is especially excellent for creating fiction, or a thread of work/product/media you would like your readers to see.

In case you were curious, this is what self-reply tweets on your timeline will look like regularly, until you click on the anchor tweet.

The only thing you need to be care of is deleting tweets mid-thread, meaning, be sure you want to continue the thread (that there aren't any mistakes) before you do. Deleting a "middle" tweet breaks the thread and creates a bit of a mess. You can however delete the last tweet (if needed) and simply continue on, though sometimes it does create a "broken" effect in the timeline.

Finally, once you have threaded all the tweets you want, you can reach them all via the pinned. Click on it, and all of them will appear, no matter how far back they were posted. And you can move back and forth pinning and unpinning those other tweets simply by clicking the one you want to make the new Pinned! This saves so much time looking for old tweets.

For an excellent example of a self-reply tweet thread, go to the "MetalFic", a (safe-for-work) fiction account on Twitter -- specifically this tweet. Currently the story there is over 250 tweets long, in a single, top-down thread.

The Art of Retweeting Old Tweets

Do you have something you want to share with everyone, but don't want to necessarily input it over and over and over again? Click the post so that only that tweet comes up (I'll tell you why this is important in a moment), then simply Untweet and Retweet once more.

What this does is "renews" the tweet, placing it back at the top of your timeline. This is great for people posting about important news, events, content or product they wish to share.

This also works on other people's tweets. So now, you can help your friends over and over again, without having to wait for them to tweet the information again. It even works for Pinned Tweets.

Note though that if you try Retweet someone else's tweet from your own timeline, but do not bring up the tweet exclusively (eg "isolate" the tweet), you risk losing it once you've Untweeted it, and you'll have to hunt for it all over again. No fun.

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That's it. There's not a lot to it, really.

If you liked this article, check out my other how-to articles here or my fiction here. Both courtesy of Vocal.

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About the Creator

Made in DNA

The not-yet bestselling, non-award winning author of work you haven't read yet!

Work spans various genres -- scifi, weird, non-fiction, life in Japan.

Campsite Bio (website, Twitter, FB, IG, Mastodon, etc.)

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