The tools on Twitter you are NOT using
Replies and mentions are two of twitters most powerful tools, and most people are not using them. People are not interested in following you on Twitter just to have you stand on a soap-box or push content at them. Though, they want to see your pics and vids, they also like the idea that they may actually be able to talk to you.
First lets clarify the difference between a reply and a mention. a reply is when you write something in response to someone else’s tweet. This kind of tweet begins with an @ mention.
If the tweet begins with the @ sign it will not be seen by everyone who follows you. It will appear in the notifications tab of the person you tagged, on your profile timeline but not on the Twitter newsfeed. If you want people to see it, you have to start the tweet with something besides @. It is not uncommon to see people start with a . The simple . is enough to change it from a reply to a mention.
A mention is a tweet with an @tag in it, but not at the beginning of a tweet. Conversationally this could be a reply to someone, but it is still considered a mention.
Basically, a reply goes to the person you are talking to. A mention goes to everyone who follows you.
Now that we know the difference between the two, lets get back to the tools are you are missing out on. Mentioning people, and replying to people, is the best way to make your followers feel appreciated and liked.
One of my social media hero’s is Chris Brogan. I was at a conference he was attending, and speaking at, and saw him at the bar during the first night social event. I tweeted out that I saw him but was too nervous to say hi, and tagged him. He responded later, saying I should say hi next time. I was beside myself with excitement that he actually spoke to me! The next night, at another event party, I saw him and did say hi. I ended up hanging out with he and his girlfriend all night, getting to talk to social media all stars. It was amazing!
My point it, his little response made me feel special. He has 325K followers on Twitter. I think back then, it was more like 75K. He has a lot of people tagging him and talking to him. He made a point of responding to people. It is part of how he built his brand.
Gary Vaynerchuck, another social media millionaire, built his entire company and brand off the back of human connection.
Mentioning people makes them feel valued and valuable. As users we are not expecting to get a response, because so many people think they are too cool for school and don’t do it. So when we do get one, we are surprised and in a good way. Good surprises stick with us. People don’t just want to like what you do, they want to feel special. Gary Vaynerchuck did a study on what he calls the “wow” experience and showed that people who had the “wow” experience are 30-50% more likely to remain with your brand, buy more product, and recommend you.
You can do this by a simple Thanks or emoji 
! So go and talk to your fans. They love you and if you talk to them, they will love you even more!
Comments
thanks @7veils, definitely very useful advice. The value of talking to people and actually responding is incredible, so two thumbs up from me on this one.
This is all very true. I make it a point to respond to everyone, favorite their tweets at me and even re-tweet as well when appropriate. The only downside is that many fans/followers in our line of work are looking for the "girlfriend/boyfriend" experience. These may not be paying customers, just people looking for a connection. My added advice is not letting those followers monopolize your time and create an illusion of the social media experience being something more than it is. I've been guilty too many times in the past of trying to be nice to followers like that and I've seen it take up way more of my time and give them a false impression on our interactions online. I realize that it could happen to anyone on social media, but I think our line of work is more prone to this than others.
I've definitely had more than a few people try to converse with me on an overly friendly basis, I even had a guy try to speak to me and flirt with me in Arabic even after I said a) that I was only comfortable conversing in English or French and b) that this was my business Twitter, and I wasn't seeking dates. It was very uncomfortable.
I don't really have many "fans" on Twitter, I basically have the serial likers (who just favourite all my content previews to jerk off to for free later) and the ones who try to flirt with me for free. It's sort of hard to be sociable with them when half the time they're thinking they're going to get free nudes for being nice to me.
That said - and only because I didn't see it mentioned - I feel like I should mention CrowdFire here, it's a really useful Twitter app I was introduced to a while ago. You can view recent unfollowers and send out scheduled tweets; I've got it rigged up so that it sends out a default message advertising my website to everyone who follows me, it's pretty cool. Definitely helps with getting your content out there.
let's face it - not all the people trying to talk to you will be quite sane
but it is the world of social media and we must deal with all the nuts if we want the sales as well... wishing you all a more pleasant following 
Brilliant advice! Thanks
thanks for this! def going to change up how i reply
thanks i regisered on crowdfire and set up the auto DM marketing, cool ... i dont use so much of .@ because all I get are likes and retweets ... no one mentions me or start public conversations I guess it's because I'm TS lol