How to Get Text Notifications From Twitter

With Twitter you can add your mobile phone to your account and receive notifications of activity relating to your account via SMS. This feature is useful if you can't get an Internet connection where you are but you still want to know how people are interacting with your Twitter account. To make use of the feature you first need to verify your phone number, and from there you can choose the notifications you want to receive either by SMS or on the Web.

Link Your Phone to Your Twitter Account

Identify your Twitter short code from Twitter's Help Center (see link in Resources). This differs by country and by carrier, so be sure you have the correct code.

Text “START” to the short code (without quote marks).

Text “YES,” your username and your password as requested in the replies from Twitter.

Change Settings on the Web

Log in to Twitter.

Go to “Settings,” “Mobile” and then locate the “Text notifications” section.

Check the options relating to the notifications that you want to receive.

Go to the Twitter page of any individual account from which you want to receive notifications of activity. Click the person icon, and then click “Turn on mobile notifications.”

Change Settings with SMS

Activate notifications for @ replies by texting the following messages to your short code: “set mentions on” (without quote marks) sends notifications from people you follow, “set mentions all” notifies you of all mentions, while “set mentions off” deactivates mention notifications.

Change direct message notification settings by texting “set messages on” or “set message off” (without quote marks).

Define your interaction notifications. Send “set followers on” or “set followers” of toggle new follower notifications (without quote marks). Send “set favorites on” or “set favorites all” to be notified when either a follower or anyone favorites your tweets, or or “set favorites off” deactivate favorite notifications. Send “set Retweets on”, “set Retweets all” or “set “Retweets off” to do the same for retweets.

Turn on notifications of activity for specific accounts by tweeting “ON username” (without quote marks), replacing “username” with the actual username of the account.

Text “OFF” (without quote marks) to turn off all notifications, or “ON” to turn them back on.