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On twitter a reply is when you want to answer or reply to one specific tweet to one specific person. It’s not private, for a private reply you want to DM (Direct Message) the person. Replies are public, but they only show in the timeline of people who are following both you and the person you are following. To reply, you need the @ to be the first character of the tweet.
A tweet that starts with anything other than @, but still contains an @ is a mention. If you want everyone who is following you to see the reply, you need to use a mention, instead of a reply. To turn a reply into a mention, you can just put a period (.) in front of the @.
If you are discussing a site instead of talking to the site, you probably want to use a # (hashtag) instead of an @.
A retweet is a way to forward great tweets to your followers. Retweets start with RT and include the username of the person who originally tweeted it.
Examples:
Reply: @username I use #goodreads
Mention: Are you following @goodreads?
Replying with a Mention: .@username Anyone can add books to #goodreads
Retweet: RT @username Check with @snopes before forwarding something that could be a hoax.
Do you have more twitter questions?
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Deb's Answers 
Pingback: Can I get a retweet? « Aim high. There's plenty of room.
thank you
You’re welcome! Let me know if you have more questions I can answer.
I still don’t get the retweet. I am trying to retweet (as i see others do) with a copy of the ORIGINAL tweet showing after my response & RT. Example:
Nope. RT @survivorwiki: @JeffProbst I mean, if you’re involved in a tie, can you use an idol at the second vote?
clearly “survivorwiki” sent a tweet to Jeff. Jeff then answered the tweet by doing a retweet & it showed up as: his response RT @survivorwiki (obviously cuz it has to go to the person) and then the original tweet that was sent to him.
How does he have that copied in there? how can i respond to someone & it look just like that? is there an app for that?
To do that from the twitter.com page, you have to do it manually. Don’t use the retweet function, just copy and paste the original and type in the RT and the names. Some apps do have a retweet function that allows you to edit it before posting. Hoot Suite is the one that I use.
Retweeting existed before there was any retweet function, then everyone had to do it manually and many still do.