Bring on the Tweets!

2013 is upon us and once again the biggest news that had people cyber buzzing about over the New Year was Kim Kardashian’s pregnancy with Kanye West, which not surprisingly spread like wildfire through the Internet, courtesy of the retweet button. So much so that a hashtag #kimye went trending.

Well, first of all, you are probably wondering why this is even relevant news and why should you care? Especially since Kardashian is a self-made product of social media, a sex tape and a reality show. Simple really. She is an example of how she has used social media to bypass traditional routes of communication with absolutely no speculations or pregnancy gossip arising from the press considering her high-profile relationship with the paparazzi. Yes, this certainly cements that social media is indeed a very powerful tool that should make multinational corporations and business professionals take notice.

If your establishments have yet to open a Twitter account, 2013 is the year to do it, and not a minute later either. With the influx of social media divisions and digital advertising companies opening in Manila alone, some charging exorbitant fees to disseminate information on the worldwide web, it’s high time that we understand how Twitter works.

I’d like to share some media literacy tips and online etiquette of what you need to know to promote your business, event or persona to the world courtesy of Twitter from what I learned from majoring in communications with a specification of “new media” at UCLA:

Twitter is a micro-blogging web platform which uses only 140 characters. Learn to condense a message or idea within the conformity of the space provided as opposed to tweeting several messages to indicate one thought. It gets tiresome and complicated when you have a message that takes anywhere from three to seven tweets.

Do not be fooled by the number of followers a person may have on Twitter or any other “Social Media Platform” (Facebook, Instagram and the like). Believe it or not, it is not the quantity of followers that garners power or popularity but the quality of these followers. It is actually the kind of people that follows you who have clout and buying power themselves that matter. If a mover and shaker follows you, then you are in business. Why so? Because anyone can open a Twitter account and it has actually become a business where people who have nothing better to do open up fake accounts all day long and charge for a nominal price to enlist more followers. Even cyber followers can be bought at this age! Better to have less followers on Twitter who have many other followers than many followers that don’t have any.

Do not flood timelines! It is irritating and annoying! You may be wondering what this means? Well, a timeline is the actual feed of one’s tweets. It is better to spend time posting and checking Twitter on several occasions during the day for shorter amounts of time than at one big chunk once a day. Yes, think sporadically!

The battle of the hashtags is very real and happens quite often. What does this mean? Well, a hashtag is a symbol marked by a number sign (#) and a corresponding word that lets all the people on “twitterverse” volt in and see other people’s tweets under that same subject. Here’s an example. When a big event takes place such as the release of the latest phone, people in media are commissioned to disseminate information about particular promotions. Remember this especially when you are looking for social media companies to boost your advertising. Nobody can guarantee that a hashtag goes trending. There are many factors to get to that “trending” point and there isn’t even a number that correlates to what it takes to trend. So be warned. All it means is that people on Twitter are discussing the same thing and that hashtag is an indication of that conversation.

Start a cyber relationship with people in your line of industry who you admire and look up to. Twitter makes it possible to actually have a conversation with high-profile people that you would never have had the opportunity to meet or have a dialogue with. An example of this from my own life is how I have had an exchange of tweets with the screenwriter of an Oliver Stone film I watched over the holidays called Savages. I tweeted recommending that people should watch the film and the screenwriter Don Winslow tweeted me back and followed me. So, start interacting with whoever you deem worthy in your industry and sooner or later, if your tweets are engaging, the possibility for an exchange is highly within reach.

Selfie is the new nickname for a photo of one’s self. I understand if you feel the need to promote what you are wearing, where you are at or the company you are keeping. However, there should be a limit to how many times a day you tweet your selfie before your followers start unfollowing you.

A word of caution on that retweet button. Basically, a retweet icon sends a message from someone you follow to all your other followers. The acronym for this is RT. If you see a tweet from one of the people you follow that contains the RT symbol, think about what they are promoting, saying or representing before you retweet their message. If you find that you agree, disagree or want to comment on that message, then retweet it using a “quote” message. This application of quoting a retweet is only available on smart phones.

Many personalities and companies have tried to monetize their tweets but there hasn’t been an algorithm discovered that equates to specific amounts. If so and so tweet about an event or product, more likely then not, they are getting paid. And yet, no one can really measure if their tweet contributed in the effectivity of the campaign. Be wise and think twice before you throw funding behind a social media campaign. There are never any guaranteed results.

Lastly, keep your personal feuds with others out of Twitter. If it’s negative, insulting and derogatory, please spare ruining other people’s timelines who follow you. Keep it among yourselves or even better, adhere to the saying that if you have nothing nice to say, best to say nothing at all. Unless of course, you really want others to know how dissatisfied you are with a company’s service since most of these corporations have customer service representatives monitoring their company performance on Twitter.

Make 2013 a year of trying new things and conquering the social media landscape by signing on to Twitter! You may tweet the author by following @gtongi on Twitter.