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Twitter Tips - How to Send a Direct Message

Twitter is one of the most popular websites on the Web, with 175 million tweets being sent every day. Most of those tweets are freely visible to the public, but sometimes Twitter users want to send a private message to another user. The only way to do this in Twitter is to send a direct message, which can only be seen by the user you send it to, much like an e-mail.

You can only send a message to people who are following you, though. That's the only catch. If you want to send a message to someone who isn't following you, you'll have to send a public tweet and include the @ symbol followed by the person's user name. However, for anyone who is following you, sending a message is simple and can be done in one of two ways.

One way to send a private message is from your profile page. At the top of the page next to the search box is a generic picture of a person. 


That's the button to access your profile options. When you click that button, you'll see an option for direct messages. Clicking the option will open a dialog box that initially shows all the messages that you have received (if any). At the top right of that box is a button to create a new message.

There's a narrow box at the top where you'll type the names of all recipients. Simply start typing their Twitter name, and Twitter will suggest users among your followers. The larger box at the bottom is where you type your message. Keep in mind that even direct messages need to be within the 140-character limit, just like a public tweet.

The other way to send a private message is to go through the recipient's profile. It doesn't matter if you click on the recipient's name from your followers list, which will show you a dialog box with a brief summary of the person's profile, or if you go to the person's full-page profile. Either way, you'll see a "Follow" button on the profile, and to the right of that is the same icon you would've used before, with the silhouette of a person's head.

By going about it this way, you'll see an option to send a direct message, and the person's name will automatically appear in the recipient box. This just saves you some time.

Messages are a great and simple way to interact with your followers on a more personal level.


Article Source: Jon Vaitl

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