In a nutshell
A mention is a feature where you write @username to let someone know. It works on X, Instagram, Threads and others, and your post reaches the notifications of the person named. It is used to thank customers, introduce business partners and announce joint projects.
Replies vs. mentions
A reply is a response you write beneath someone else's post. A mention calls out a person inside your own post, and it can be used even when the post is not connected to theirs. A reply also usually adds the other person's @ automatically, so both send a notification to them.
| Reply | Mention | |
|---|---|---|
| Where you write it | Beneath their post | Inside your own post |
| Connection to their post | Yes | Not required |
| Notification to them | Yes | Yes |
A post that mentions someone may also catch the eye of their followers. It works best in situations where both sides want to let each other know, such as a joint project with a business partner or introducing the co-host of an event.
What business accounts should watch for
A mention goes straight into the other person's notifications, so using it badly is a nuisance. The basic rule is to avoid @-ing people you don't know or who don't follow each other. Adding @ to many accounts for promotion is easily treated as spam on every network, and on X, an @ to someone outside your followers is one of the conditions used to flag spam in its recommendation system.
When you want to share a customer's post, ask permission first and make clear who they are with a mention. That also puts the recipient at ease. The rules for replying are in Rules for replies and DMs, and how to handle customers' posts is in UGC and handling customers' posts.
In SNS TOWN
The pre-post check stops posts containing an @ when they would go out to X from an AI draft or a post cycle. When you want to address a specific person, the flow is for a person to write and publish the post themselves. For posts you wrote yourself and for networks other than X, it shows a warning only. To respond to replies on your own posts, you can also use Auto-reply.
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