How to Lose Followers and Alienate Tweeple

Just follow these 5 steps & you will be on your way to having no followers!

1> Tweet every thought that comes to your mind during the day.

I hate homework

This pencil tastes good!

My fingers are purple!

Please tell us everywhere your mind goes, we want to know!

2> Tweet Multiple times about your cat.

Bonka Bonka just bit me!!!!!

Quizi’s keeping me busy! She is just tooooooo cuuuttte!!

Smooshers Fat Cat is eating again!

So what. Just get you cat a twitter. Seriously.

3> Use all caps and many emo hearts

OMG WHAT DID KANYE DO AT THE VMA’S!!!!!!

WTF!!!!! MY PHONE GOT WET!! I <333333’ed>

Yup. All those caps & emo hearts really add to your message.

4> shorten everything

tks 4 da cd ppl! I rolflamo! Srsly.

I hav 2 go! Ttyl.

Everything is just so short. I know that’s the point on twitter but don’t go overboard!

5>merge all words and twitter together

Yeah all my tweeple are meeting for a tweetup at the twark.

If it weren’t for all this twaffic Id be at the twaffle by now.

I’d twait but I don’t want to be a twammer. The twalkers would like it tho.

This one gets irritating fast!

there you go. now get out there and lose some followers!

Twitter App Ideas

After watching the 80-minute video about Google Wave I was inspired to write about how Twitter could be improved.

First I would like to see an app that shows a graphical view of users to easily navigate social circles. I would like to be able to view regions of twitter.

It would be reminiscent the “map of the Internet”, complete with profile pictures at the nodes. And to make navigation of this web easier, word clouds could be superimposed over groups to identify the “neighborhood” you are viewing.

This would take a lot of computing power to do but it would be so easy to find people in your circle and in your area of interest.

Second I would like to see how many of my followers are getting tweets directly to their phones. This would help me see how many people really like what I am saying.

It could be used as another measurement to see the involvement of followers.

To make it accurate people without their phone numbers on Twitter would have to be excluded from, or accounted for, in this measurement.

What would you improve on Twitter?

Ad Saturated Society

Problem:

Our society is now saturated with ads. It is hard to go anywhere without seeing at least 10 ads. While walking to class on campus I pass people handing out fliers, booths for clubs, graffiti ads, posters, banners flown from planes, sidewalk chalk messages, and many more ads. I recently opened a Facebook page & there were 3 popups, 3 ads in the side bar and another at the top of the page! Youtube has ads above the description boxes and multiple ads at the bottom of the videos. I even have the option to advertise on this blog! We see so many ads we have become numb to them.

Solution?

At some point this will have to stop. I really liked Wikipedia’s move to ad-free forever. Relying on charity is a great way to keep customers happy but also keep the business going (link here-> http://bit.ly/2jpHBp ). I also recently came across guerilla marketing, where advertisers place ads in creative, unexpected places. I think this will narrow down ads to only the most creative (guerilla markering -> http://bit.ly/446JSE ). I also liked Sprite’s ad campaign where they threw a party back in 2006 (short article here-> http://bit.ly/1nhzND ) This is a great way to get people interested in a product, and imbed the product into a culture group. The downside is that a party can be expensive, especially if you want celebrities there.

I don’t know how advertising will be fixed, but it needs to be. I think Internet companies need to acknowledge that there are other alternatives to advertising (charity, gathering information about what is popular) and companies need to be more creative with their advertising campaigns.

More Followers Does Not Guarantee Twitter Success

The Subject

I just recently came across this twitter user and had to write about it, @***** has 30,000 followers. Yeah thirty thousand. But she is following 28,000. (so she followed her way to "fame". She is not an actress or a famous blogger, or a politician. Her description says she is a funny poet/mother. I cannot find much of her humor on her website, or on what she calls her “blog”, which is her twitter profile.

The Problem

So what? Big deal she is trying to put herself out there why am I trying to tear her down? Because of the relationship she has with her followers. There is no way she has the time or speed to follow 28,000 users. And likewise, her followers cannot pay attention to her because they are doing the same thing. Following for fame (you like it? Catchy right?). I looked at the page views of her twitpics and the bitly links she made (I know, I’m a great stalker!) and in both cases the links were clicked less that twenty times! Yeah. Out of 30,000 people 20 found time to check out the material she posted on twitter. 0.066% of her followers care to see what she has to post.

The Solution

So the moral is that it’s better to make real connections on social networks, than to worry about the numbers. And don’t follow for fame. Instead start conversations with your twitter friends and get to know them.

how to get BIG on twitter

“how to get BIG on twitter” is the new “how to lose weight”. Different people saying the same thing:

Eat Less!

Tweet More!

Follow this work out!

Follow a lot of people!

Only do cardio!

Uhhhh… well, theres not a really twitter analogy for that one. Only tweet???

You get my point. So I have decided to make my own list of twitter do’s and dont’s.

DO:

Follow a reasonable amount of people

Tweet some each day (2-3) but not too much (20+).

Add a pic & bio about yourself

Mix up the material. Add some pics, vids, and links

Advertize your @username

DON'T

Spam people

Give out your password to third parties who spam

Follow creepy people

Meet twitter folk in abandoned warehouses on the docks

Tweet about your cat. (just make your cat a twitter account)

Really you will have to learn most of this on your own. These are more like guidelines. In fact most of the biggest Twitterers (is that a word? Word doesn’t know it. But Word also doesn’t know facebook) are not famous for twitter but for something else. So make some videos, write some music, or start a blog!

Tourism: America's Future Job

With the recent economic crisis the value of the dollar has slipped. Our interest rates are very low (good for American businesses and home owners but unattractive to foreign investors) and the rest of the world doesn't trust us anymore. Other countries are dumping the dollar from their reserves and replacing it with other (in their opinion safer) currencies like the euro. Furthermore, politicians know how to fix the market but refuse to do so because it will cause some financial pain before the market gets better, making them look bad. (all politicians do it, don't worry). So how does this relate to tourism?

Well has anyone noticed the price of european goods recently? I wanted to buy the european car magazine, Evo, the other day but it cost $10 (but only 5 euros). So with a slipping dollar and politicians unwilling to sacrifice their popularity to fix the problem, foreign goods will cost even more. It will become very expensive for Americans to travel abroad like we have been doing, but on the flip side Europeans will be coming here because it will be cheap for them.

So my advice is to move to the coast, make some awesome souvenirs, make some money & enjoy a Pina Colada on the beach!

I just moved here from Facebook and Twitter. I've had great success with finding good ppl on the interwebs & im looking forward to meeting more. Ive recently gotten deeper into social media & marketing (even thought my major is biomedical engineering). I like to talk about social trends and big picture stuff. (my personality profile is intj, so big pic stuff). I am in college, i like tennis, table tennis, sunglasses, and tv. Now im watching the office, parks and rec, the middle, community, white collar, lie to me, and modern family. Im not entirely sure where this blog will go but im anxious to find out!