There are conversations that work on twitter, and ones that don't. In general, twitter conversations are quick back-and-forth affairs. If you need more than 2 tweets to express your thought, you're either using the wrong medium or thinking too far. If that conversation model doesn't fit you, that's perfectly fine, but that's not the fault of twitter. It's just a bad match-up. In that case, it's perfectly fine to respond to a tweet with a link to a medium that does support your model better.

If you do get roped into a conversation where you need more tweets to explain, here's a few simple guidelines:

- Don't split sentences over tweets. People will only read one part.

- If you really must, use "(cont.)" on both tweets (end of the first and start of the second), so it's obvious there was another part. I know that reduces your character limit, but it's worth it to be less ambiguous

- Make each continued tweet a reply to its predecessor. You can reply to your own tweets. It facilitates following the conversation on most clients.

- If it's more than 2 tweets, consider using twitlonger. In general, that should be a last resort, though.

Without trying to make it sound high-handed, there's something of an art to smooth twitter conversations. Terseness is the key. I find them rewarding because, when done right, they have an enormous density of information in a short time.