5 Ways to Dissect A Tweet

Sat, Apr 11, 2009

Digital Anthropology

It occurred to me that there are many ways to tweet.  (I have the urge to say “Duh, Sarah”) .

A few of my favorites:

THE CONGLOMERATE TWEET
What It Is: Commentary + Title of Article + URL + Citation
When To Use It: Everyone always likes to have the last word.  I don’t suggest doing this 100% of the time, but adding your $0.02 is acceptable every once in a while.  Also, I’m a big fan of the citation (via @____).  I use “via @” when I want to give credit but I didn’t necessarily see a “tweet this” button, nor am I @replying to the person.  @overyy brought this up last night.
Twexample: Whoa this is way cool!  TweetStack: Get Your TweetDeck Columns on Your iPhone [Free Copies] http://bit.ly/10BP [via @mashable]

THE WHAT-AM-I-DOING TWEET
What is it: Self-explanatory.
When To Use It: Please use the WAIDT sparingly.  Unless you’re Demi, John, or Ashton, people would rather read something actually interesting.  Yes, I’ve been guilty of some WAIDTs so I’m not saying don’t use them.  Buuut if you want to, try to be a little cr8iv.  If you’re cutting off 13’’ of your hair to donate to Locks of Love, please tweet it.  If you’re going to Barber Floyd’s for a trim, I’ll let you decide.
Twexample: I’m here http://bit.ly/28zxAW doing this http://bit.ly/s5DEi for one of these http://bit.ly/QRtO

THE PROMO TWEET
What It Is: Tweeting to promote yourself or someone else
When To Use It: For promoting yourself:  If you did/wrote something worth tweeting about.  @therisetothetop had a good article about this the other day.  He’s right in saying that “Your horn was built for tooting” so tweet and toot get your hustle on.  (Read the rest of his article on how to hustle here.)  For promoting someone else:  PROMOTING OTHERS IS HUGE.  Make sure that when using The Promo Tweet, self promotion < promotion of others.  If I think someone is awesome, I want to let EVERYONE know.  Do this OFTEN!!
Twexample: Listening to call with mutants @LewisHowes and @ChrisBrisson :-) www.asklewishowes.com for info

THE INSIGHTFUL/INTERESTING-OR-AT-LEAST-YOU-THINK-IT’S INSIGHTFUL/INTERESTING-TWEET
What It Is: Some thought that popped into your head.
When To Use It: When you can’t contain it within the confines of your head anymore and it creeps its way onto TweetDeck and forces you to press “send Tweet” button.  This can also be used when you’re procrastinating, bored, or otherwise not ABL’ing (always be linking… thanks @GuyKawasaki!!).
Twexample: Q: What does valuing put options have to do w/ social media? A: Nothing, but it does make me appreciate creativity & innovation

THE RESEARCH OR QUESTION TWEET
What It Is: A tweet asking a question, looking for feedback, or researching a subject
When To Use It: When you need help with something or want to know something.  Alternate method for this is  just searching search.twitter.com for keywords.  I am starting to use this much more now than Google.  Oops did I just say that out loud?
Twexample: 40 minutes later, I still can’t figure out how to embed a YouTube video into powerpoint (for a mac). Help? Anyone?

P.S. Check out Alex Shalman’s Project Mojave Review.

  • The most important thing about Twitter is to ignore the "What are you doing?" question and replace it with whatever question fits your use of the service. Perhaps "What do you know?". Or "What's new?".

    "You can do Lifecasting by taking the "What are you doing?" question too literally. Short messages about personal whereabouts and activities are important information that is always exchanged between people, but is much more meaningful between people who actually know each other. The human connection is just as important online as it is offline. Almost everyone on Twitter does this sometimes, and that's perfectly fine, but if that's all you post, you are only interesting to your Mother." I wrote here: http://scienceblogs.com/clock/2009/04/triangle_...

    But there is more: eavesdropping, broadcasting, data-collection (there are several examples of that now - see the links at the bottom of http://everyone.plos.org/2009/03/30/plos-one-on... ), dialogue/debate/discussion, and of course Mindcasting.

    <abbr>Coturnix’s last blog post..Why social insects do not suffer from ill effects of rotating and night shift work?</abbr>
  • Tina Schrader
    Oh - and that would be, "simply because I'm NOT Demi. Not. Not Demi. ;)
  • Tina Schrader
    Hi, thanks for these! However, I must admit that the advice given for the WAIDT irritates me every time I see it. When I see the question, "What are you doing?," I think it only fair to write...what I'm doing. Notice it doesn't say, "What did you see in the news today?" "How awesome do you think Twitter is today? More than yesterday?" "How many followers do you have today?" or any of the other nonsense I've seen advised to consider as all-important. I do post other things for others, but simply because I'm Demi (who, to be honest, I don't find all that interesting) doesn't mean that I'm such a peon that I'm not worth having what my life experience for the day is read. I actually, SHOCK!, LIKE reading what other people are doing. Yes - it's good to provide content for others. No doubt. But enough with the "the mundane is awful. Write it again and you'll end up with enough hate DMs to scare you away from Social Media forever"-type stuff. Again, sorry for the rant, didn't mean to, and I do sincerely appreciate the other points. :) Have a good one. :)
  • Tina, I appreciate you leaving such a thoughtful comment! I agree with you that sometimes, I enjoy seeing what people are doing. And I didn't mean to imply that I never, ever, and won't ever tweet about something that I'm doing in my personal life. Buuuut, I just meant to say that there are such incredible ways to utilize tweets and Twitter has such incredible potential, that it's a shame to waste every 140 tweet on that type of stuff. Tina, what is your Twitter handle? I want to follow you.
  • You missed the RT - retweeting posts from someone else that you find tweet-worthy enough to forward to your followers. Since Re-Tweeting eqiquette and twitter TOS requires you credit the originator, it's a great way to spread the twitter love, and give props to the originator.

    <abbr>Twitter Fail (@tweet_fail)’s last blog post..Ohhhhh Pra</abbr>
  • I agree! I love RT and I love when people RT me. Spread the love, spread the knowledge.
  • @philipturpin
    Hi Sarah,

    Nice article.

    From reading it, it would appear that the 'Conglomerate Tweet' is actually describing a 'retweet'. Is that right?

    If so, you may be interested in an article I posted:

    http://www.perceptiveweb.co.uk/blog/post/The-Tw...

    I do like your take on the categorisation of Tweets :)
  • These are all great examples Sarah. I use most of the Tweet variations you used here. In fact I just tweeted this @sarahmerion :-)

    <abbr>Gerald Weber’s last blog post..Automatically Perfect Your Blog’s SEO</abbr>
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