Tips for Tentative Tweeters
August 27, 2009
I like Twitter.
There, I said it. I like to use it, and I like to read it, no matter how many pundits and laymen alike grumble over the microblog's purported uselessness. While not everyone who creates a Twitter account will find the site useful or compelling, the widespread appeal of Twitter is no fluke. In the right hands and with the right intentions, Twitter can actually be fun, useful, and even informative. Here's the why, who, what, when, and where of using Twitter to its best advantage.
Why should you be on Twitter?
There, I said it. I like to use it, and I like to read it, no matter how many pundits and laymen alike grumble over the microblog's purported uselessness. While not everyone who creates a Twitter account will find the site useful or compelling, the widespread appeal of Twitter is no fluke. In the right hands and with the right intentions, Twitter can actually be fun, useful, and even informative. Here's the why, who, what, when, and where of using Twitter to its best advantage.
Why should you be on Twitter?
I like Twitter because it's a quick, easy, precise way to post interesting stuff on the web. I get most of my cultural news this way: I've found new books to read, new blogs to follow, and new topics to think and write about through my friends' tweets. The best Twitter accounts should make you feel engaged, informed, and current.
Your tweets should do the same for your followers. Forwarding links, composing brief reviews, and sharing quick facts provides a varied and compelling array of information to your readers. It also allows you to promote great ideas, articles, and writers to ensure that they get the exposure they deserve. Think of tweets and re-tweets as brief, culturally enriching chain letters that can spread the best web content across the globe. But, you know, without the chain mail curses.
Twitter has not proven particularly useful for creating social intimacy or providing a space for intelligent debate. The site is not a "social network" in the conventional sense because it doesn't attempt to represent the self like Facebook and MySpace do; at best, Twitter conveys the momentary interests and fleeting preoccupations of an individual. So if you're looking for a web application to forge connections with your peers, Twitter might not be for you.
What do people tweet about, and what should people tweet about?
According to a recent study, about 40% of tweets are "useless babble" about the weather or eating a sandwich or buying a spice rack. These are bad tweets. Another 37% of tweets are conversational (meaning that they are directed at only one person, not at the general population of followers). Only 9% of tweets are re-tweets (meaning they're interesting enough to have "pass along value") and only 4% of tweets are news-related.
I'll be honest: about one in ten of my tweets is "useless babble" (actual tweet: "the plaster & paint are up @ the grandparent's house--what a day!"). No one cares. I know this, and I try to limit myself accordingly. But when I do fall under the Internet's siren song of unfettered self-expression, I try to make up for my inanity through cultural commentary attached to #hashtags (such as movie reviews or book recommendations) and links to articles that I think are worth reading.
I try to tweet away from personal topics as much as possible. Like any other form of writing, you should consider the needs and interests of you audience; your Twitter friends are following you because they want to be entertained or informed, not to be subjected to the minutia of your daily life. If in doubt about whether something personal is tweet-worthy, ask yourself this: if you were to run into one of your followers on the street, would you find it necessary to tell him or her that you "Might stop for a coffee before hitting the office!" or "Luv luv luv cantaloupe for breakfast!!!"? No? Then don't tweet it.
I'll be honest: about one in ten of my tweets is "useless babble" (actual tweet: "the plaster & paint are up @ the grandparent's house--what a day!"). No one cares. I know this, and I try to limit myself accordingly. But when I do fall under the Internet's siren song of unfettered self-expression, I try to make up for my inanity through cultural commentary attached to #hashtags (such as movie reviews or book recommendations) and links to articles that I think are worth reading.
I try to tweet away from personal topics as much as possible. Like any other form of writing, you should consider the needs and interests of you audience; your Twitter friends are following you because they want to be entertained or informed, not to be subjected to the minutia of your daily life. If in doubt about whether something personal is tweet-worthy, ask yourself this: if you were to run into one of your followers on the street, would you find it necessary to tell him or her that you "Might stop for a coffee before hitting the office!" or "Luv luv luv cantaloupe for breakfast!!!"? No? Then don't tweet it.
Who should you follow?
I follow friends, colleagues, and a few news accounts. I follow friends because we share a sense of humor and they add personal zest to my home page. I follow colleagues because they frequently post great links about interests we share; they help further my professional interests. I follow news sites to stay up to date on certain topics and publications, though I only follow news profiles if they don't tweet more than a few times a day and their interests are very similar to my own (like @newyorkerdotcom and @iwantmedia, which tracks digital media trends).
I follow less than thirty people, and I don't think that a tweeter could follow more than fifty without losing track of what's going on in real time (and that's the whole point of Twitter, right?). When it comes to who you follow, keep the list small to keep it useful.
Where does tweeting occur?
I follow less than thirty people, and I don't think that a tweeter could follow more than fifty without losing track of what's going on in real time (and that's the whole point of Twitter, right?). When it comes to who you follow, keep the list small to keep it useful.
Where does tweeting occur?
Basically, you can tweet on-line or over a mobile device like a cell phone. It doesn't matter where you tweet, but you should know that tweeting from your cell phone makes it easier and more tempting to post useless and off-putting blather to Twitter. Tweeting about a visit to the doctor's office ("Sitting in the waiting room for twenty minutes now. SOOO bored. Old Redbooks suck!") may alleviate your boredom, but it's only increasing that of your followers.
When should one tweet?
When should one tweet?
I tweet about twice a day on average: sometimes I tweet ten times a day, and sometimes I go for several days without tweeting. I have friends who tweet once a week and friends who tweet as often as they check their email (which is very often).
There is no ideal tweet frequency, but tweeting more than once an hour on average (more than 24 posts a day) is bad Twitter etiquette. It's annoying when a single tweeter fills your home page with updates. Besides, it seems implausible that a single person could have more than 20 hilarious epiphanies, bizarre experiences, enlightening opinions, and illuminating reading sessions in only a few waking hours. Anyone who's tweeting at this frequency is not tweeting much worth reading.
However, if your life just happens to be that fascinating, your mind that fecund, and your web trolling that extraordinary, you can find me at @amoebaspleez; I'll be sure to follow back.
There is no ideal tweet frequency, but tweeting more than once an hour on average (more than 24 posts a day) is bad Twitter etiquette. It's annoying when a single tweeter fills your home page with updates. Besides, it seems implausible that a single person could have more than 20 hilarious epiphanies, bizarre experiences, enlightening opinions, and illuminating reading sessions in only a few waking hours. Anyone who's tweeting at this frequency is not tweeting much worth reading.
However, if your life just happens to be that fascinating, your mind that fecund, and your web trolling that extraordinary, you can find me at @amoebaspleez; I'll be sure to follow back.
1 comment:
I don't know, I think the "useless babble"/"bad tweets"/"would you say it to someone on the street?" thing is absolutely the wrong rubric, and misses a lot of why Twitter is both useful and compelling. Though a given piece of minutia may seem trivial--just as a given detail in narrative fiction may not seem particularly relevant in and of itself (and I think the Ibsen idea that every detail should Matter™ is silly and relies on a bad and retrograde theory of fiction)--the aggregate effect of familiarity with someone's life (not the content of the details, but the fact of them) is non-trivial. Am I necessarily interested in knowing what you or my other friends had on your sandwich at lunch? Not particularly, no. Am I interested in the sense of closeness and proximity that's gained by knowing not only the Major Events in people's lives but also the trivial, inconsequential, quotidian details? Absolutely. One of the virtues of things like Twitter/facebook/blogging is precisely that the rhetorical situation ISN'T the same as it would be if you ran into someone on the street or talked to them on the phone. I think people miss the point, both philosophically (the question of why Twitter is interesting) and sociologically (the question of why people have swarmed to Twitter and seem to love it so much, despite complaints about its triviality), when they talk about "useless babble" and allegedly meritless posts. Twitter absolutely CAN create and foster intimacy. Of my Penn State friends, I generally feel closer in significant ways to the ones who are on Twitter or are particularly active on facebook. I also just met a couple of Sandi's best friends who are in town for a wedding, and the intimacy of "useless babble" (on both facebook and Twitter) made me feel a lot more comfortable around them, because there was already a significant connection.
Put another way, sure, I don't want to read about some random person being bored in their doctor's office--but that's because I don't know them and am not interested in them as a person. If it's someone with whom I want to have a sense of familiarity, someone I know a bit and find interesting, then I'll read whatever they post, however trivial it is on its face, and the net effect will be that I feel closer to them.
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