Timing Your Tweets For Success

It is a simple game plan when it comes to Twitter. The more people your tweets reach, the more established you can become as a credible source of news.

In this article on Mashable.com, Leonhard Widrich explains three apps that help you track the timing of your tweets.

The apps serve as a way to observe when tweeting would be most efficient for you.

The apps use a multitude of data in order to decide when your tweets would be most effective.

Everything from followers tweet times and density to number of retweets is tracked in order to determine optimal tweet times.

While there is no solid data that tweeting at certain times will help up your followers it certainly can't hurt anything.

The most important aspect of your tweets is their accuracy. But, if no one sees them are they really doing their job?

Sourcing for your tweets is another important part of tweeting. Variation is the key so people don't get bored with what you have to say.

In this case timing may not be everything but, it isn't something to be ignored.

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The Importance of Media Literacy

Social media is a prominent force today. One of every eight minutes is spent on Facebook and thousand of tweets are posted each hour.

With this in mind it is important as a journalist to be on top of it all. It is not enough to just know how to work a computer, but you must be 'media literate.'

Recently a tweet was released by Mashable that stated the wrong number, accidentally changing it from billion to million. This tweet was then passed on by a very prominent journalist, further spreading the false information.

Was this journalist being media illiterate by further spreading false information?

Although the spread of false information was not catastrophic in this case, it was a cause for concern.

Journalists today are expected to keep up with the constant flow of news information, and breaking the news is only half of it.

Todays media world calls for a journalist that is media literate.

Ten years ago being literate meant you could properly read and comprehend what was being read. Today it is different.

In order to be literate today, you need to be able to objectively look at tweets and blog posts and decide what is in fact, reliable. Apply those helpful critical thinking skills that have been developing throughout your life.

If a journalist cannot properly discern what is true and false, reliable or not, then they should be hesitant to inform others of the information.

Not only do journalists need to practice this, but every person should be discerning when getting their news. People need to take caution and understand that any average joe can spread the information.

As the saying goes, don't believe everything you read.

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Rage Against the Media

Photo courtesy of CreativeCommons.org

On September 17th, all was normal with Twitter. However, if you chose to glance down at trending topics, there were a couple of interesting choices:
#occupywallstreet
#sept17
#USdayofrage

If you were intrigued enough to click on one of these hashtags, the content might have surprised you. For it appeared our nation was in the middle of a giant, unexpected economic protest on Wall Street. The hacktivist group Anonymous used some of its many Twitter accounts to help organize the event, and stood among the crowd during peaceful demonstrations against 'coporate pigs' and the American government.

If you were watching the mainstream American news, you never would have heard any of it. As the day went on, Twitter users began complaining of a major media blackout against what they claimed civilians would deem to be news. And it seems to be true: the first major media company to release an article over the event was Al Jeezera English, a foreign media outlet (read the article here). In fact, while Al Jeezera released their article the same day as the popular revolution begun, it took American outlets at least a full day before they began to release any kind of coverage (see Business Week's coverage here). It was too long for the protesters, one of whom tweeted "This whole lack of news coverage thing for #occupywallstreet is kind of disturbing. Yet the asinine Glen Beck rally got all that press?"

Why did it take the American media so long to respond to a major protest on one of our country's most famous streets? For weeks, journalists have been covering foreign protests with a lot of effort and no small amount of dedication, yet the biggest news of Saturday was left to the foreign media and protesters to break themselves. There is speculation that major media corporations dragged their feet on purpose to cover it, because after all- the public was protesting specifically against corporations. Were the major news networks purposefully avoiding the subject to save their own dignity?

If journalists are going to continue referring to themselves as our nation's 'watchdog', then they need to be watching their own business moves. When you are a journalist, you don't do what's best for the corporation. You're doing what's best for your nation's civilians, and sometimes, you need to swallow your pride.

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Twitter in Trouble?

It seems that all is not well in the world of Twitter. That is, according to a recent cover story in Fortune that warns Twitter's usage appears to be flat lining.

The story says Twitter has garnered 200 million citizens from all over the world, but one hundred million of them are absent altogether, and Twitter.com has about 20 million fewer visitors per month than Myspace.

Twitter also seems to lack a visionary product leader while suffering from outages and not turning a profit. Finally, CNN reported on Wednesday that UberMedia is planning to build a rival micro-blogging network that could shun the the famous 140-character limit.

Now the question is does Twitter really have a problem on their hands? Should "tweeps" begin looking to another city with fewer rules?

Well, looking at the numbers Quantcast says there's been a 50% jump in usage in the past five months, Google Analytics says international traffic has risen 83% in the past year, and because so many people are tweeting on their mobile device or third party app, the Twitter.com numbers are incomplete.

Even without the numbers Twitter is the only service that actually immerses you in a global conversation, especially when there's a natural disaster, major sporting event, or revolution going on.

What about it's 140-character limit? This is, and will be, Twitter's greatest asset despite the little minority of people that protest against it. It's the stop-light system that keeps the traffic flowing smoothly and allows everyone to get a word in.

If something is worth saying, it's worth saying as short and brief as possible. Just ask Poets and screenwriters.

With that said, I believe the answer to "Is Twitter in trouble?" is simply, no. Twitter has accomplished something special and is far away from being outdone or repeated in any way.

Wouldn't you agree?

Photo Credit: money.cnn.com via Creative Commons

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Top 10 Twitter Users

Who is your favorite celebrity? Or how about musican? Are you following them on Twitter? The answer is most likely yes.

1. The most popular Twitter user at the moment is Lady Gaga, @ladygaga, with 9,127,120 followers.

2. The runner up for first place is teen singing sensation Justin Bieber, @justinbieber, with 8,492,294 followers.

3. Third place is pop star Britney Spears, @britneyspears, with 7,283,609 followers.

4. Fourth place twitter is President Barack Obama, @BarackObama, with 7,215,354 followers.

5. Fifth place is held by reality television star Kim Kardashian, @KimKardashian, with 6,962,871 followers.

6. What about former twitter champ Ashton Kutcher, @aplusk? He now has fallen to sixth place with 6,507,333 followers.

7. Top 40 singer Katy Perry, @katyperry, is in seventh place with 6,469,984 followers.

8. Television host Ellen DeGeneres, @TheEllenShow, with 6,301,221.

9. Country music superstar Taylor Swift, @taylorswift13, is in ninth place with 5,795,999 followers.

10. Tenth place is held none other than Oprah Winfrey, @Oprah, with 5,467,114 followers.

All of these famous people have the blue official Twitter symbol by their names verifying that is is the actual star. A notable mention is Charlie Sheen, @charliesheen, in 34th place with 3,331,387 followers. Remember that he started his Twitter account just a few weeks back. The number of followers that he has now is incredible.

If you want to search your favorite star follow the link to see the Top 100. Remember: that the numbers might be slightly off due to new followers every minute.

Photo Credit: Via Creative Commons

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