140 Characters Essay 2

The short form I feel is the future. More and more people are starting to use Twitter and it already has a giant member base. I believe its appeal is so broad, because as people we like to do things fast and get our information as quick as we can. Facebook can post long paragraphs, but Twitter has to be an abridged version. We love the fact that we can get all the information for something in under 140 characters. Also, the way it’s set up, anyone can see what you post as a non-profit and this makes your organization way more marketable.

“140 Characters” discusses different ways to make your twitter experience better and I believe that you can pick out some great ideas. One principle they talk about is “Know Your Audience”. On page 28 he talks about how we should find out who are audience and form our content through that audience, then he later says “don’t try and read all your notifications.” This struck me as odd, because after reading SMSG, it talks about connecting with everyone. I believe that 140 Characters isn’t really geared towards non-profit only social media, so that is probably why it states this. I believe that connecting with all of your followers if they talk to you is a great way to improve your social media experience.

Dom also discusses different ways to use word. If you develop your own voice and play with words, it will make your twitter sound more “hip”. Every time I read about using voice or how to word your tweets I always thought of the account “@DadBoner” on twitter. His tweets are suggestive, but he became famous by the way he voices and makes up new words for different items. If people can get a certain tone out of your tweets and hear it in their head, they start to become more familiar with you and what you’re trying to convey.

In the master chapter @dom talks about simple tweeting and people who have mastered it. Your content doesn’t always need to fill up the 140 character limit to get a point across. If you’re able to get something through with 1 sentence, that can be better because it’s just a short, cute memoir. He discusses again how people like Ellen Degeneres will play on words in her tweets or just think of witty jokes, and it’s how her page is slowly becoming more popular. He also discusses parody accounts like @DarthVader and how tweets quirky jokes can get your voice heard.

Another thing that he discusses is the use of Filtering and Evolving. The more you come attached to your twitter, the more you’ll enjoy using it, and the more other people will enjoy reading your information. This is huge for non-profits because you have to love what you’re doing otherwise it will be very hard to get people to follow you, because they will know. Through evolving your twitter, you need to make lists to filter. The problem is, @Dom’s idea of filtering also means “following means you’re leaving one person to follow another”. This goes against what we learned for non profits, because of the 1:1 rule. If we’re planning on doing a 1:1 follower ratio, you will have to siphon out some important twitters into different list so that you are able to see important information that is happening. This is something that I need to work on. At the moment, on my personal Twitter I only have one list for this class, but I believe making more for news outlets and other themes will help me massively.

Personally, I think @Dom raises a lot of great information, but there are also a lot of things that I can disagree with. Obviously, he is doing something right, because he has a lot of Twitter followers, but I still think some of the stuff that he talks about in the book is pretty common knowledge. Some of the knowledge I believe is geared towards more personal or business like Twitters, but I feel like the whole game is changed when we’re dealing with non-profits.

Philosophy of Social Media Essay 1

The philosophy of Social Media to me seems to be an easy concept, and that is to be “social.” Social Media for Social Good explains this perfectly, because in every chapter it talks about how we should be connected and active. For example, on page 78 it talks about how you should have more than one administrator for your page. I believe this is very important, because if you’re managing a massive page or even a small one, using multiple social media websites can be a daunting task and making sure you are able to talk with your followers can take many hours if it’s a single person.

Communicating with your followers is a huge part of social media, and it’s what makes people check your page more often, because they feel like they’re talking to a person instead of just listening to a bunch of ads. For example @createthegood on Twitter is a group for AARP members to see groups doing good work and keep their members connected. On top of this, if anyone tweets to them, they always tweet back. On page 96, it talks about “Don’t only tweet your own content”, and this is important, because if you’re retweeting other groups content they will most likely check out your page and hopefully retweet some of your tweets, and this only makes your audience much larger. Also, through this you build relationships with other groups who are doing something close to what you’re trying to achieve, and this will ultimately help you’re non-profit out.

Also, when dealing with Twitter, SMSG talks about the art of hashtagging. I see this art terribly used by a lot of business and non-profits. Hashtagging is there to “tag” your post so it can be grouped together with others like it. Unfortunately, though, I see twitter accounts use hashtags as additions to what they’re saying. Learning how to successfully use hashtags will get other people to use your hashtag, which will make tweeting to follower prospects much easier. You have to market your hashtag, and even though it might be very difficult at first, it will help you in the long run.

One thing, though, that I have a problem with SMSG is it talks about following 1:1. I can see how this will work with a smaller twitter account, but once you get to a higher twitter follower count, your Twitter feed will be almost 90% irrelevant spam. I do believe, though, that it is essential, because people feel that they’re friends with you, and will feel more at the same level, but I just think that your feed could get out of hand. Once again, though, this is where having multiple admins will come in handy, so you’re able to look over everyone’s tweets. This is still one problem I have on my personal Twitter which is probably making me into the “egoist.”

Personally, I see myself as a social tweeter, so I try to communicate with people as much as I can so they can see how I am personally. I believe when working with a non-profit this will benefit me strongly. I am not always so social when in person, but online I feel like my voice can be heard better, and I can get my point across. This is exactly how I look at social media with a non-profit. When using an organization twitter or Facebook, you want it to be fun, you don’t want people to feel like they’re reading from a robot. I think that if I can connect with people through social media while also giving fun, inventive updates about your events.