Dogs

Doggie DMs and RTs at the #SafeHowlOween Twitter Party

by Carrie Boyko, CEB

I am incredibly impressed with how many of you are coming outside your comfort zone to try out a Twitter Party. This is a newer way to have fun and win prizes in the pet blogging arena, so Twitter classes continue today with a couple of new ways to get your Twitter messages across in the best possible way.

DMs, or Direct Messages, aka Messages are like Twitter email. This method of communication is private. Here's what you need to know about DMs:

You can only send a DM to a Twitter user that follows you.
A DM is for messages you prefer to send, without other followers viewing them.
DMs are still limited to 140 characters, just like regular tweets.
Many Twitter parties use DMs for answering right/wrong questions (so that others don't see your right answer in a contest) or for communicating shipping information for prizes won. This is one reason you must follow your hosts during a Twitter party, as you may need to DM an answer or an address.
Following the Twitter party sponsors is important as well. They often have special offers or may contact party attendees afterwards to ask questions or collect information for shipping a prize. In order to DM them, you must follow them.
To send a DM, click the Messages link at the top of your Home Page, or click the envelope icon on the recipient's Twitter Profile Page. You'll get a pop up window to type your message in. Some Twitter users may have DMs disabled. Others may have DMs in a drop down menu on their profile page.
For more details and FAQs about Messages, visit Twitter's Help Page for Messages.

RTs or ReTweets are simply tweets sent by another Twitter user, and then repeated by you. Here's how it works:

You read a tweet that you like, and would like more users to see it.
From your Home page, hover your mouse over the tweet. A few options will appear just under the tweet itself. These options are : favorite, retweet, and reply. You'll also find a time stamp on this same line.
To Retweet this same tweet, simply hit the retweet link. Twitter will pop it out and ask if you want to Retweet it. If yes, hit Retweet, and off it goes to all your followers Twitter feeds.
In the announcement post for All Things Dog Blog's #SafeHowlOween #Twitterparty, we offered a prize to RSVPs for Retweeting a message. This is a great way to help other Twitter users get their tweet seen by others in the Twitterverse. In this case, simply copy the tweet from the post and go back to your Twitter Home page.
Paste the tweet into your "What's Happening" box and send it out as a tweet. Done!
You can test this out right now. Here's the message we asked our party attendees to tweet: Join me 4 #SafeHowloween #TwitterParty w/Vet @balancedcanine, great prizes, and @Terrapaws #dog treats. Details: http://ow.ly/6LRnd Copy and paste this message, making sure you get all the characters at the end, and ship it out to your followers right now.
You can verify that it worked by watching for it to appear in the top line of your feed momentarily.

Stay tuned for more Twitter class coming soon, when I'll be covering Mentions, Replies, Twitter links, following other users, and sponsor highlights. Until then, watch for me at @AllThingsDog. My #SafeHowlOween #Twitterparty co-hosts are @Dogtipper and @FidoseofReality, and our sponsors are @Terrapaws and @BalancedCanine.

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