Scott Hanselman reckons you really ought to know about these twitter tips. I’ve cribbed them from his page, but added my own spin or interpretation in italic lettering.

1. If your tweet starts with someone’s @username, only that user and the people who follow both of you will see the tweet in their timeline. Don’t start a tweet with @username. Add a “.” before the “@” to let everyone and @username see it.

2. Keep the Reply Chain unbroken and reap the benefits. If appropriate, use the “reply” feature to “thread” tweets rather than starting a new @username thread.

3. Know about the advanced features of Url Shorteners. Although Twitter’s builtin URL shorteners is fast taking over, bit.ly remains one of the best. Take any bit.ly link and add a plus sign to the end and you get to see all the stats for that link (even if it’s not your link!)

4. Silence your Retweet friendly friends without unfollowing them. If your timeline is filling up with noise because of friends who RT a lot, then you can silence their retweets without unfollowing them. There’s a button in their full profile page next to the “Following” box.