Twitter can be messy sometimes when a mob of spiteful individuals pounce on your post and start digging out things about you. Whether you want to use the platform as a journalist to disseminate information or just want to have private mingling with like-minded people, there is a new feature that’ll allow either of them.

Ladies and gentlemen, Twitter Circles allows you to tweet to a select group of followers rather than the entire general public. The social media company describes the new feature as follows: “some tweets are for everyone and others are just for people you’ve picked.”

If you want to learn how to implement this new feature on your own end, continue reading.

How Do I Create a Twitter Circle?

The new feature is now integrated into the tweet feature which means each time you are composing your next tweet on your updated Twitter application, you’ll be able to select your tweet audience: everyone or Twitter Circle.

This feature works just like Facebook’s privacy settings when creating a post whereby you can select who sees your post. Public, Friends, Close groups, etc. In order to send a tweet to a select Twitter Circle, here’s how to go about it.

1. Click on the “Tweet” button and then proceed to the create new tweet interface
2. Right beside your avatar, there should be a pill-shaped dropdown button with the default selection being “everyone”. Click on this to open a slide-in pop-up
3. From the new modal, you can select who gets your tweet: Everyone or Twitter Circle.
4. To make use of Twitter Circle, you need to first add people to the circle (as they’re the ones that’ll be able to view your tweet) so go ahead and click on the “Edit” button next to the Twitter Circle option.
5. Then you’ll be presented with a new tabbed interface (Twitter Circle and Recommended) to add your followers to the circle (you can also search for followers if your list is overwhelming) NOTE: Anyone that has been added to your circle can be removed from the circle while new followers can be added to the circle via the “Recommended” tab.

When all is set, your Twitter Circle members will be notified that they were added or removed from your Circle and your tweets will be shown to them only rather than being public. In fact, if you’re in someone else’s circle, they still won’t be able to see your own private tweet so far they’re not added to your Twitter Circle.

You can also retweet something to your Circle if you click the Retweet button, select Quote Retweet, and change the tweet to Twitter Circle.

That said, all regular retweets and replies from outside your Circle cannot be sent to your Circle. In fact, you will see the indication based on a green notification beneath the tweet.

Also, tweets that were sent to your Circle can only be seen by those within the group and they’re the only ones that can interact with them. If someone however interacts with a Twitter Circle tweet, only other members of the Circle can see the interaction. Members of the Circle cannot in fact retweet your Circle tweets to other followers or even their own Circle.

It’s possible to edit your Circle

In order to edit a Twitter Circle after it has been created, you can simply do so via the tweet box by selecting “Everyone” and then clicking on the “Edit” button next to the Twitter Circle (as mentioned above).

From the “Twitter Circle” tab, you can just remove anyone you no longer wish to have in your Circle or go to the “Recommended” tab to add new people to the list. There’s also a search form to quickly look up a follower and add them to your Circle.

What about the “Protected Tweets” feature?

I think vocabulary could be issue for those coming from Facebook to Twitter who want to make use of these privacy features. For example, there’s something called “Protected Tweets” which basically keeps your tweets visible only to your followers and not those outsides of it.

In order to make use of this feature, you just have to head to More > Settings and privacy > Privacy and safety > Audience and tagging and enable Protect your Tweets.

While this is a great feature, you might still want to limit your tweet to a few of those who are your followers hence, Twitter Circle. The Circle feature just basically reduces the pool of those who you’d like to see your content. This can be great for those with a lot of followers.