Top 10 Twitter Abbreviations You NEED To Know

We all know that you can only 140 characters per tweet on Twitter, which for many is pretty restrictive.  This puts pressure on tweeps to communicate more effectively and condense down their content into bite sized chunks.  The natural product of a 140 character limit is the  abbreviation of  commonly used words to free up space for more important content.

You may have come across some of these already….weather you know what they mean or not is a different matter!  When I first started using Twitter many years ago, I was baffled when abbreviations like RT and FF kept popping up.  Let me save you the hassle of jumping on Google and searching around.

Here are the top 10 Twitter abbreviations you need to know:

1 )    RT – Retweet – This can be used if you would like to share a tweet from another user with your followers.

2 )    #FF – Follow Friday – This is a commonly used hash tag used on Friday’s to signal to your followers which users are worthy of     a follow.  They could have been helpful or added value to a conversation you had.

3 )    DM – Direct Message – This abbreviation is used to indicate that you would like them to direct message you (or vice versa).

4 )    FB – Facebook – When mentioning Facebook in a tweet, it’s always best to abbreviate.

5 )    SM – Social Media – When tweeting about social media, SM can save you plenty of characters.

6 )    TFTF – Thanks For The Follow – This is great to tweet to all your new followers and could even be a way of sparking conversation if they’re not sure on what it means!

7 )    JV – Joint Venture – This abbreviation is often used when discussing possible opportunities for a joint venture.

8 )    MT = Modified Tweet – This means the tweet you’re looking at is a paraphrase of a tweet originally written by someone else.

9 )    PRT = Partial Retweet – The tweet you’re looking at is the truncated version of someone else’s tweet.

10 )   #TT – Trending Topics – This hash can can be added to you tweet when referring to a trending topic.

Thanks to Business Insider and Social Media Today for some great information on Twitter abbreviations.  If you think there are any other important ones that I’ve missed please add them in the comments below!