Tweeting with Jamie Thornberry
Facebook used to be the main social network for the younger generation and now every farmer and their mums are using it. Literally the average age of a facebook user has sky rocketed to the age of 37. This has resulted in the adoption of a huge variety of social networks. In this post I will talk about my most favored social medium, that is Twitter.
Twitter originated in the Roman ages when a young soldier tied a message to the foot of a small bird, ok maybe that’s, not how it started. Twitter actually started from the rubble of an old podcasting platform named Odeo. Since then the instant messaging platform has taken off.
So in order to fully understand twitter lets break it up.
Tweets: A tweet is a short message that goes out to the twitter community. You can use tweets to keep your followers up to date with what you are doing. Within your tweets you can also add images, links and even videos. In order to maximise the impact of your tweets don’t be afraid to be creative with multimedia.
HashTags #: Hash tags are simply a category for your tweets. If I was to share this article for example I would add hash tags such as #twittertips and #mediatips as they would be my target audience for the tweet. Hashtags are your primary tool for maximizing tweet outreach. If you’re tweeting something important maybe try googling trending hashtags in order to ride the wave of popularity.
@Usernames: If you would like a particular person to get a notification you can mention them in a tweet by using the @ symbol. On another note when your are picking your username, don’t do what I do and change it every time you get sick of it as you lose all links to old tweets. So get it right the first time.
Favorite: To favorite someone’s tweet all you need to do is click the small star below their tweet. By favoring the tweet you are letting the original tweet poster know in the form of a notification that you like their tweet.
Retweet: If you click the small square below the tweet you will post the tweet on your page so your followers can see. You can also add additional text and hash tags when you retweet in order to further its outreach.
So now I know the basics where do I start?
Following People: The best thing to do when you starting out is to follow a few people that interest you. My interests for example would range from Richard Branson to my friends that I meet from work. Don’t be afraid to have a good look through their content first as its those very posts that will be appearing as part of your main feed.
Following engagement: The next step is to scan through the tweets from the people that you have fallowed and begin to interact with them. Try favoring some of the best ones and adding some comments below the tweets. This engagement is a great way to begin to build a following.
Twitter Chats: When I first started with twitter honestly I was bored out of my mind because it lacked that sense of community. I felt lost under a mass of tweets that I found irrelevant and at times completely absurd until I started to engage in a variety of twitter chats that aligned with my core interests.
Agchatoz: Ag chat oz is the first major twitter discussion that I engaged in on a weekly basis. Agchatoz is a community of farmers and agriculturists that come together once a week to discuss the latest issues in agriculture. I’m sure that the issues covered in agchatoz would strike a chord with majority of the readers of this article, so feel free to head over to twitter on Tuesday night at 8pm and check out the conversation.
We live in a noisy world and in many ways that world has evolved so fast that our mentors often struggle to give us insight into how we should react to it. My message to young agriculturists would be, don’t solely rely on your mentors, teachers and employers to establish your network for you.
With the world at your fingertips you can begin to establish relationships, partnerships and even friendships with some of the major people in the industry that you’re looking to move into while your still at university. So don’t be afraid to reach out to employers in the industry via mediums such as twitter and LinkedIn as it will make that transition into the workplace much easier.
If you have any further questions feel free to follow me on twitter as well as linked in, you can find the links below.
