In the past month, I've been paying closer attention to Twitter and trying to learn as many words I can from Twittonary*, which by the way isn't going well at all and only resulting in tweepless (not actually).
The Twitter phenomenon reminds me of when chat rooms and instant messaging clients were all shiny and new. And during that time a new language sprang up with abbreviations and emoticons that transformed anything you wrote into a confusing foreign language to those uninitiated.
The same can be said for Twitter and unfortunately there are a lot of people who suffer from Twitterrhea.
Risk of Twitterhea is a valid concern for those wary of engaging with this particular form of social networking. Organisations are scared of bombarding their stakeholders and there is a lot of pressure these days to stay fresh in the Twitosphere, where the Twitterati dominate while Twidiots are aplenty.
How does one succeed at Twitter?
Simple. Tell people what they want to hear - keep your messages relevant and interesting to your stakeholders - nobody cares if your organisation has just bought a new printer for HR, the only people who can generate such interest in mundane tweets are people like Kim Kardashian (who is in the top ten of most popular Twitter users, the list is 80% US celebrities).
Just like any communicative strategy, time, energy and genuine effort need to be invested to reap a successful outcome.
Problogger offers up some useful tips (aimed at bloggers but can be applied to anyone really) for those who want to maximise Twitter's potential. See here.
Who here actually loves Twitter? Honesty is still the best policy.
*The Twitter vocabulary used in this post is just a tiny fraction of how this "language" is evolving. I don't know about you, but I still find it all just a bit too irritating and I still feel like a poser if I say it all out loud. This means I don't ever use these words in reality.
Photo courtesy of adele.turner
4 comments:
I registered also at twitter and I struggled really at the beginning! The language is wired and abbreviations normally used in text messages are even proscribed. So beginners have to be quite brave to jump in the twitter-pool! But I could imagine that the biggest part of the “avatars” is passive and only a few people tweet regularly and often. How they manage their time would be an interesting tweet!
I agree with all your points.
I think some people overuse social media and use it as a boasting platform as egomaniacs, just as they would overexaggerate their lifestyles in person.
What I find particularly irritating and obnoxious is when one of these types, who
may have just learned something recently themself, goes on to use that knowledge to boast and try to undermine others in the process. Knowledge is power, but used in a negative way, one loses the respect from others, and trust and relationship building is hindered. I'm not sure yet if the online world is more forgiving of this due to an inability to detect the facial cues and gestures and tone of an obnoxious voice, or if these traits are amplified when online and open to an honest discriminating audience who would quickly shut them down. Wouldn't that be grand?
@ Mali and Rad Nad, thanks for your comments!
I've often wondered that too, how do some people tweet almost every second of the day?! It's mind-boggling and quite scary in fact...
There are definitely a lot of people that are abusing social media to an extent and it makes establishing a standard of social media all the more difficult.
Hello Sabrina,
I love Twitter. Honest! I think it's great, if you see my post I wrote on Twitter, you'll understand why. It's such a great way to communicate with people. I tweet almost every day, but to be honest, I think that's because I have a Smartphone. I'm usually on it through there. As for the abbreviations and the twitter language, the more you use it, the more you'll learn it! Just like anything else in life!
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