Have you ever seen an ‘MT’ in the opening of someone’s Tweet and thought: “Isn’t it RT not MT?” Then figured they didn’t know Twitter-lingo like you.
It’s not a typo at all. “MT” means ‘modified tweet.”
It signifies that the person has modifed the Tweet in some way before Tweeting it to their followers.
I’ll show you. In the example below you will see that I Tweeted out Ryan Schram, Valerie Granuzzo and I are presenting at the PRSA International Conference.
In the next Tweet you see that PRSAevents modifed the Tweet (MT) and sent to their list of followers.
Think about it – when you retweet someone, it’s common you want add a comment of your own before you Tweet it, but you still need to stay within the 140 character limit. Boom- perfect opportunity to use the MT signifier!
You can add your own comment and there you have it- you can share the original Tweet while alerting your followers that there is more to the original quote.
Another instance where using an MT is great is when you want to change or add a hashtag to share the Tweet with another Twitter chat community. This broadens the reach of the original Tweet, ensures that people know you are adding the hashtag, and introduces this new Tweet into the conversation.
If you use the MT you should still include the original Tweeter’s Twitter handle to give them credit.
MT is certainly not as popular as RT, but it is gaining momentum.
Now, next time you see that MT you’ll know exactly what it is!
Gina Luttrell 