Q. How do I send a message to someone that is not following me?A. If a Twitter user is not following you, you cannot send him or her a direct message, so you must send that user a public reply. This is done bt starting your tweet with the "@" symbol, then the user's Twitter name. Enter a space, then your message.
Example:
@thepodcast You guys are the greatest in the world, I love you dearly.
We will see this when we check our "mentions" in Twitter, we will see this message.
Note: Technically, you don't need to start the message with the nickname - it can be anywhere in the tweet.