First off I should apologise. It’s been a while since my last post. It is a challenge managing a client workload whilst still making regular blog contributions and even conducting SEO work on your own websites. But hey, I’m here now, and once again I’m talking about Twitter.
It seems that ever since I got a Twitter account it’s been one of my favourite topics to blog about as well as one of my preferred social media sites to visit. Recently though I’ve grown concerned that I Tweet a lot of personal opinions and things that there are certain people that I would not want to see. So I set my Tweets to private…
Most Tweets are Public
By default, all Twitter accounts are public. Meaning that essentially, anyone can see what you Tweet. Take a second to consider if this is something you are comfortable with. I was actually quite happy with this arrangement, as other than a few football (that’s soccer to you American folk) related tweets, I’d like to think that my Tweets were relatively inoffensive. Problems for me arose when people that I had blocked from viewing my Tweets (no I’m not going to tell you why, don’t be so nosy :p) were still doing so.
It is incredibly easy to set-up a Twitter account, so even if you block one account, it is not too difficult for someone to create another that will be able to access your Tweets if your account is public.
Setting Your Account to Private
An account set to private has protected Tweets – meaning that they can only be seen by manually approved followers. People have to send a request should they wish to follow someone whose account is set to private.
You can use the Account Settings page in order to change this setting. Before you do though, read on…
Private Accounts cannot be Retweeted
If you set your Tweets to private, nobody can retweet your Tweets. That witty comment you made about one of the trending topics can only be seen by those that follow you, and the only way that they can retweet it is using the manual “RT @…” format, which many people are actually too lazy to use.
@ Replies to Non-followers cannot be seen
This was what really disappointed me about my newly private account. If I replied to Tweets from people that didn’t follow me (e.g. celebrities), my tweets would not be visible to them. Surely by nominating someone with an @ mention, that should make it clear that I’m happy for said person to see that Tweet, should it not??
Needless to say…
I reset my Twitter account to public. Thankfully this is as simple as heading back to the settings page and un-ticking the option. As long as you don’t say anything too stupid or offensive, or don’t have a specific, important reason why you don’t want your Tweets shared with the masses then the default, public option is probably better.
But if you are concerned, you probably won’t want to read about these “hilarious Social Media sackings!”
