Taking the Clutter Out of Twitter
Twitter is an amazingly easy way to inform a group of people about something or inspire them to take action. The concept is micro-blogging, sending a 140 character or fewer messages to followers to get them to check out your blog, take notice of an event, or just tell them what you are doing. The beautiful thing about Twitter is that if you look at all the tweets out there and organize them, it is a snapshot of our society. However, like all forms of Media, it can become an unwelcome distraction and a waste of time.
If you go to your home page in Twitter, you will see trends on the right side- this lists the most used words in Tweets so you can immediately see what everybody is talking about.
Another cool thing is the search function box. If you want to hear the latest Michael Jackson jokes, you can search for that and see all the Tweets at once that contain that word.
Hash tags are another way of making sure the people who want to see your Tweet can find it. For instance, one of the top trends today is #musicmonday. If I search #musicmonday, all the Tweets about #musicmonday are displayed, and I can view them all. The Tweeters simply start the tweet with the hash tag to ensure that the tweet can be searched for.
Twitter comments need to be either educational or funny. I have quit following anyone on Twitter that tweets every hour about a fly on their computer screen.
To help anyone who might be overusing Twitter, I have put together some examples of “bad” and “good” tweets.
Bad: “Stuck in traffic AGAIN, and this guy gave me the finger.”
Good: “Watch out for the Bayside Bridge. Dump Truck overturned.”
The first one is simply a complaint that happens to a vast majority of us on a daily basis. The second one has something in the comment that people in that area can use.
Bad: “It’s raining here and I’m watching the rain”
Good: “In the eye of the hurricane now here in Dallas, waiting for part two.”
The first one here is someone telling all their followers that it is raining. (Yawn) The second is giving an update on a natural disaster.
Bad: “Ahhh… I have a flat tire.”
Good: “So, I was driving down 9th St and I ran over a hoe. Seriously. There was a hoe in the middle of the road. A garden hoe.”
Are you catching on to this, or do I need to explain that one?
When Tweeting, consider our target audience and what they want to hear, not just what you want to say.
