Chiperoni ku Basel

Category: tweet

  • #POSSE learnings – Things to add

    Testing in progress. I’m using my self-hosted WordPress to tweet. It works.

    WordPress offers Aside and Link formats for short entries.

    Some things I’ll need to add or general comments:

    • I often tweet external links I find interesting. Twitter is my Delicious substitute. I need some kind of URL shortener for links that will appear in the tweet space. Or I’ll need to use bit.ly manually – like we used to.
    • I’d like links in the WordPress Aside or Link to convert automatically to an URL. There’s a WordPress plugin that auto-converts web addresses into HTML links. But it’s fallen into disuse.
    • How do I pull my faves and retweets out of Twitter?
    • I typically tweet a lot of Flickr photos. My photos are hosted on Flickr and moving them into my own site would be way too large and cumbersome. Not POSSE-conform yet.

    Posting via WordPress, I’m adding an extra click. I assume this will negatively influence engagement with my tweet stream.

    On the other hand, stepping away and taking the trouble to tweet from another (very) personal site influences what I’ll write. Automatically I find myself saying: Is this tweet worth it?

    Twitter will change even more in the months leading to the IPO. We need to be media-savvy. And POSSE is a good experiment.

    Have a good day.

    Clicking is dead, scrolling is king.

  • Malawi on Twitter – Version June 2013

    Twitter lists are its most powerful and least-used feature.
    (Source)

    While I am fully aware, that Twitter lists have lost significance in the past years, I still maintain a list on Malawi.

    malawi-twitters

    Since the early days of Twitter, Malawian content has increased many fold.

    Social media content about Malawi during general election time, or about President Mutharika’s death, proved to be fairly accurate.

    Obviously, a tweet on its own is just raw material. It needs further analysing and fact-checking.

    Why Twitter? There is still lots of misunderstanding and one-sided reporting regarding African countries. Largely due to ignorance and the way mainstream media continue to report about the African continent.

    Best way to change this perception? Well, one way is to tweet and share your views and opinions. Some ideas:

    • Share your technical innovations and solutions.
    • Tweet about your business idea and find partners for business and trade opportunities.
    • Build networks and become a trusted citizen journalist.
    • Show the positive and beautiful aspects of the country.
    • Write about societal and linguistic changes.
    • Write about mobile technology and its daily usage and fast adoption in Malawi.
    • Provide a realistic view of the challenges a small country like Malawi faces in a globalized world.

    Tweet streams included in the list encompass:

    • Malawians living in Malawi 😉
    • Expats living in Malawi
    • Malawians living abroad
    • Organizations based in Malawi (e.g. business companies, media companies, governmental channels, charities and NGOs)
    • Organization outside of Malawi, but in some way connected to Malawi (usually charities or NGOs)
    • Journalists or academics writing about Malawi

    In my humble opinion, Paper.li is a great way to visualize articles. E.g. Malawi Tribune by Mabvuto Banda

    Other Twitter lists on Malawi:

    Malawi on Twitter
    Mining in Malawi

  • Bufferapp stats for tweets and posts

    I am confused by the analytics view shown in Bufferapp. Consider the 2 tweets i posted this morning:

    bufferapp stats

    One has 0 (zero) clicks and one has close to 200. I am not questioning the 0. It’s a known fact Twitter engagement has gone down. Disappeared. But… I am fairly sure that nobody clicked on my other tweet either. The number shown must be the total number of clicks on this bit.ly link, right?

    Is this useful for me?

    Why show me the total number of clicks worldwide on this link? My educated guess is that Bufferapp (or any other Twitter stats tool for that matter) can only count clicks via the URL shortener service. I.e. close to 200 clicks where registered for http://bit.ly/P0Hjpe. Which is somewhat misleading. Or, in other words, it shows me which tweets are truly original vs entries which are just part of a larger echo chamber.

    I guess, it can be said in this day and age, we really need to closely at how stats are derived.

    For example, a tweet starting with @name will still generate up to 10 views on Flickr. While the tweet is public and can be viewed by others, I sincerely doubt that the views displayed on Flickr are *human* views.

    “Traue keiner Statistik, die du nicht selbst gefälscht hast”

  • Today

    For future reference, some twitter poetry to keep: