Yesterday my friend Brian Gallagher posted a comment on Facebook and tagged me in a comment along with another friend, Andy Welfle.

Before I had a chance to see what Brian was up to, Andy hopped on Twitter and sent a few tweets about the article that also mentioned another friend Doug Karr and Amy L Bishop whom I don’t know.

Brian saw an Inc magazine article written by Minda Zetlin entitled, “5 Reasons People Unfollow You on Twitter“ on August 10th.

Turns out a Tweet that mentioned myself and all of the others above was used as an example of what not to do.

Here’s the quote:

3. Your tweets are in English, but I still can’t understand them.

Consider this tweet from earlier today: “RT @ScLoHo: RT @awelfle: @AmyL_Bishop @douglaskarr and what about @scloho? #solomo #yolo #BIN2012 //Yeah Doug? What cha think of @ScLoHo ?”

The article continues:

I’m sure that means something to someone, but not to me. I don’t mean to pick on @ScLoHo–I looked up his timeline, and the rest of his tweets are considerably less cryptic and more appealing. But if all or most of your tweets are full of abbreviations and inside messages, only insiders are likely to follow you. Of course, that may be what you want.

Thanks for the rest of your explanation Minda.

There is a special language that sometimes pops up when reading someones tweets. I don’t use cryptic language most of the time but this deserves an explanation.

(I find text messages more cryptic than most tweets).

RT is shorthand for Retweet.  A Retweet is like a Share on Facebook.  Twitter allows us to retweet what someone else has tweeted and give credit to the original Tweet author.  (If you modify the tweet, then change the RT to MT).

From looking at this tweet, I believe it was Andy Welfle who originally wrote this tweet which I retweeted.  And it is all out of context.

I don’t even know the entire context because this message that was part of a conversation inspired by a conference that Andy, Amy and Doug were all attending 100 miles away from me on August 10th.  The conference was Blog Indiana 2012.  I know that because of the hashtag in the tweet #BIN2012.

My guess is that Andy joined a conversation between Doug and Amy about acronyms due to a comment that a Blog Indiana speaker had just made.  Andy added my Twitter handle (ScLoHo) and that’s how I got involved.

But it’s not really as mysterious as it sounds.

Let’s take this out of the social media world and imagine it in the face to face social world.

Doug and Amy are talking about something they just heard and Andy happens to walk over and hear their conversation and add his 2 cents and drops my name.  Normally that would be about it.

But because this conversation is happening online via Twitter, it is more public than the original closed room.  I get an alert that my name was mentioned and I decided to retweet to others who follow me.

I really don’t mind being mentioned in an article titled, “5 Reasons People Unfollow You on Twitter“, especially since Minda mentioned that the rest of the tweets she saw on my timeline were appealing.

And thanks for the inclusion in an Inc Mag column.  I’ve been quoted previously by the online versions on the Wall Street Journal and Fast Company along with a few lessor known publications.

Minda’s article is pretty good and I suggest you check it out by going here.

If you are a newbie to twitter, I wrote this article just for you last year. Twitter Terms for Newbies.

And if you want to connect via Twitter anyone or everyone I’ve mentioned, here you go:

I’m Scott Howard also known as ScLoHo

Andy Welfle

Douglass Karr

Amy L Bishop

Minda Zetlin

Inc mag

and Brian Gallagher