This is how you Twitter

BY CHRISTINA GWIRA

For the past couple of months, I’ve slowly decreased my use of the social media network Instagram and have been focusing my attention on the blue bird that is Twitter. Bear in mind, I’ve never used Twitter “like that”. I’ve always been an Instagram user, with a sprinkle of Facebook to administer groups here and there. It was after my trip down to Social Media Week Toronto last year that actually put me onto the social media network, for real. Up until last fall, Twitter – to me – was seen as the social network that my siblings couldn’t get off of during high school. I’d always looked at it as a place of reckless abandon, with nudity, violence and endless, harmful memes displayed in abundance. However, what I’ve discovered recently is that there are many sides to Twitter… and I’m glad that I’ve been able to craft my own unique corner of the network. It definitely wasn’t an easy thing to do, but I’m really enjoying the feed and friendships that I’ve culminated over the short period of time that I’ve been active.

Download the official Twitter app
I very rarely tweet from the computer. The only time that I do tweet from my computer is when I’m building a thread (more on this later). The only other time that I use Twitter from my computer is to check my tweet analytics. The app is best used from a mobile device. A “post” on Twitter, named a “tweet” is only 256 characters; that includes spaces, punctuation, links and emojis. You must be quick, snappy and witty to get your point across with the microblogging platform. For me, I now use Twitter, daily, from my Google Pixel. Creating an account is easy, and can be done through the app. That’s the first step in entering into the “Twitterverse”.

Follow some people
For starters, you can follow me at @ChristinaGwira. I tweet about all things digital marketing, web design and my life. The beauty about following people that you know is that it opens the rabbit hole that is Twitter up to you. For example: when you follow me, you’ll see that I follow an account called @BrighterCraft. Its run by a person named Emily. She tweets all things inspirational, motivation… and Pinterest. So, by simply following two people, you’re able to look into their worlds, and see how what they tweet about can help you as you build your own. Also, make sure that you follow Toronto Caribbean Newspaper on Twitter as well: @TOCaribNews.

Speak your mind
The thing that I love about Twitter is that you can say absolutely anything that you want… and your aunty/uncle/cousin will probably not check you. The truth behind my exodus to Twitter was mostly because I felt that Instagram was becoming a platform where content couldn’t live on, community was hard to build, and people simply weren’t having a conversation. With Twitter, you are the conversation and you bring the conversation. The chances of some random person liking and retweeting your thoughts is high… It’s barely possible to get the number of impressions that a single viral tweet can attain on Twitter. Last month, I created a thread sharing over fifteen resources that I use in my day-to-day life as a web and graphic designer. The tweet went viral, increased traffic to my website and gained a whopping 100,000+ impressions… an Instagram post could never.

In conclusion, if you’re looking to build a community of people around ANYTHING, Twitter is the place to do it. It has a low barrier of entry into the conversations that are happening, all over the world. It’s very simple and easy to use and access being a mobile-first social network and the people that you can meet during your stay here will last a lifetime… unlike those Instgram baddies… but that’s an article, for another day…