A few weeks ago my grandmother sent me a friend request on Facebook. I am pretty sure I spent a solid 5 minutes just staring at the computer screen, willing the request to disappear back into the virtual world. As much as I love the woman and her fantastic apple pie making skills, I do not want her to be able to see my Facebook account…and the pictures of me from Halloween that come with it. Our parents’, and the occasional technology inclined grandparents’, generation has relentlessly latched on to Facebook and consequently caused our generation to begin to shy away from the social media service. So where did we flee to? Twitter. Twitter is something the “old-dogs” have yet to get their grubby paws on. Created in 2006 by four undergraduate students at New York University, Twitter is an online social networking and micro-blogging service; for all intents and purposes it is the “SMS of the Internet” (Wikipedia). Today there are over 550 million active Twitter accounts and an estimated 135,000 new users registering every day. Over 58 million tweets are made daily, with the service limiting each respective “tweet” to 140 characters. With that many tweets bombarding the virtual world, the million-dollar question is how do you stand out? In the beginning I was a hesitant Tweeter who only made an account because my friends pressured me into it. I honestly did not want one. I shared the view of Mr. Griffith, Emma Stone’s English teacher in the 2010 romantic comedy, Easy A: “I don’t know what your generation’s fascination is with documenting your every thought…but I can assure you, they’re not all diamonds. ‘Roman is having an OK day, and bought a Coke Zero at the gas station? Raise the roof.’ Who [cares]?” I did not see the amazing networking and overall professional growth potential Twitter had. Needless to say I popped the “disbelieving bubble” I was in rather quickly and in my short year and a half relationship with Twitter sent 1,706 tweets and from that received 168 followers, 683 re-tweets, and 1,126 favorites; not too shabby for a 19-year-old college student with a severely average life. My motto for Twitter is simple: keep it short and sweet. Yes, Twitter sets a 140 character limit already but I do not understand why some people feel the need to use all 140 just on principal. U.S. President Barack Obama, following his victory in last year’s presidential election, sent the most re-tweeted message in Twitter history. It simply read “Four more years.” and included a picture of him and his first lady embracing. Sometimes less is more. The Twittersphere does not need to be bombarded with unnecessary hoopla. Every time before I hit the daunting “Tweet” button a spinning wheel of “Will this get any likes? Will this get re-tweeted? Will I be ruthlessly judged for this opinion?” rolls through my mind. Here are a few tactics I use to keep my tweets in check: 1. K.I.S.S. – Keep it simple stupid. 2. Timing is key. It may seem silly but that time of day a message is tweeted severely affects its success (i.e. the likelihood of whether or not it gets re-tweeted or favorited). If I tweet about an event that I want to be publicized my best bet for the most amount of views is in the morning or the evening before a reasonable bed time--a 3 a.m. is not going to receive a lot of buzz. 3. Hashtags: good or bad? Great in moderation and terrible in excess. Do not be one of those girls who does 25 character hashtags (#omgbestboyfriendintheworld…just, why). 4. Tweeting images. I love attaching pictures and images to my tweets; people respond well to visuals. However, I would not recommend an image with every tweet. Twitter recently updated its format so that images can be viewed without having to be clicked on which I find extremely helpful. 5. Appropriateness. Will that tweet you just wrote set an angry, pitchfork-wielding mob after you (virtually or IRL)? Hopefully the answer is no. It is good to have opinions and not only express them but stand by them, but if a tweet has no other point than to bash or harm someone there’s no point in writing it. Voicing your opinions on animal abuse or tweeting a link to a fundraiser for those affected in the Philippines are the type of things our generation should be using the service for! Yes, I occasionally tweet about how amazing my Qdoba was or how my professor for x class sucks for assigning the class a last minute essay, but that’s not where the bulk of one’s time should be spent. 6. Work v. Pleasure. Every time you tweet something make sure you are ok with you boss five years from now seeing it because let’s be honest, technology can do amazing things and people are creepers; it could resurface when you do not want it to. Cliff notes of those bullets: Tweet about things you’re passionate about at times when you know people will be looking and KISS: keep it simple stupid. It’s as simple as one – two – twee(t). Edited by Melanie Ford, Webmaster and Editor-in-Chief 2013-2014
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