I must express before you delve into this thread that this is a subjective viewpoint on a topic that really interests me.
Twitter...
A phenomen that has really started to engulfe the Irish communications landscape in the last year or more. It is a very powerful medium and provides such a great insight into individuals, personalities, thoughts, musings, and just the general day to day happenings of the modern world! Current affairs, sporting updates, historical events and social revolution now happen very much so in real-time. The proliferation of ideas happen faster now than ever before. Power and control is firmly with the masses. The massess and @KimKardashian who preaches to just under 13 million followers!
There are many arguments for and against the use of twitter and to be fair if used incorrectly or more to the point impulsively it can garner attention in the wrong way. The conservative will take the viewpoint that twitter should be avoided at all costs and will recommend that to avoid trouble and controversy these 'myface', and 'facetube's' should be done away with. For anyone who may be of interest to the media you are accountable for what you say regardless of the intention.
In some ways the accounts that are the most interesting are the ones that fail to realise this, @Joey7Barton is a prime example of this but in earnest his tweets are classic gold! His tweets are emotive and full of insight into his feelings and opinions which allow followers to connect on a personal level. He is not afraid to speak his mind and whether or not you agree with him he is value for browsing. From morning to night Joey's fingers open the door to the world of a professional footballer.
With only 140 characters to play with creativity is welcomed. The style of tweet can be quite interesting. @rickygervais has a very distinctive way of tweeting which involves using the return function to give his tweets an original feel by spacing the text, thus making his few lines stand out in your feed.
Everyone will have a number of accounts that are guilty pleasures and these for males tend to be female celebs whose actual tweets present very little in the form of intellectual content but the unfollow button is just so hard to find! The alpha male has good company in this regard it must be said as I can't imagine @Cristiano legion of female followers are hugely concerned about Real Madrid's La Liga standings.
The twitter experience is completely personal, which is ironic for such a public forum. You follow as you please and make judgement based on your own interpretation. Some accounts and individuals can be mind numbing with their updates but these accounts tend to be the hardest to ignore.
My do's and dont's for the optimum twitter experience.
Do:
- Express yourself honestly and openly.
- Interact with followers.
- Tweet whats on your mind.
- Be prepared for criticism - you are what you tweet!
- Think before you tweet.
- Tweet regularly.
Don't!
- Get involved with people who abuse you. Re-tweeting abuse or responding back just lowers yourself to their level and gives them importance.
- Re-tweet tweets where people are praising you, its really irritating.
- Allow yourself to be held back by what others might think. That doesn't mean tweet anything and everything, think about it.
- Don't be controversial for the sake of it. Back up your tweets.
- Follow accounts of celebrities who are constantly promoting products. Clutters your timeline.
- Tweet the same thing over and over, if you like something we don't need to be reminded about it daily!
- Tweet pictures of your pets.
