@ Isn’t just for e-mail!

by: Joe Winn

A month back, we took on the mysterious hashtag, #. Case closed. You’ve got that character down. Was it you who shared, “Tuesday our #creditunion branch served 300 members. Before lunch! #nowimhungry”?

There is another mysterious symbol hiding in plain sight. You know it as the thing in e-mails. Yes, the @. Fun fact: It has no formal name in the English language. “At sign” is the closest we have to an official reference. Spanish speakers recognize “arroba” to describe it.

It’s for more than e-mails? Yes, and it also drives all of us nuts when we have to write one on paper. It’s the (arguably) more important companion of the hashtag. Don’t tell, though. It’ll be #reallyupset.

While the hashtag identifies and unifies phrases or comments, the @ unifies people. When you put one of these little guys in front of someone’s username, it becomes a “mention”. That user then gets notified of your post. Say I shared on Twitter (tweeted): “@CUNA, great work in representing Credit Union interests nationwide!” The manager of CUNA’s Twitter account would receive a notification of my post, and they could then reply publicly by writing “@JoeCUGeek” (my current Twitter handle) in their post.

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