Tag Archives: twitter

@BarackObama @MittRomney @GovGaryJohnson on Twitter

I wrote about the politicos and their successful (or not-so-successful) use of Facebook in: Smolitics: Politicians on Facebook. It’s time to take a look at some Twitter stats and see who is more popular on Twitter!

Smolitics: a person or idea’s popularity/performance/ or general acceptance on social media.

Twitter Smolitics for the Three Most Popular Presidential and Vice-Presidential Candidates of 2012
Note: There is a 16 day lapse between the first and second dates collected because I collected these stats at 4:30pm EST on both dates.
There is almost an 18 ½ day time lapse between the second and third day collected because I collect the data just before 7:30 AM EST on Tuesday Oct. 23.
Dates Collected -> 9/18/2012 10/4/2012 10/23/2012
- Democratic Candidates -
Barack Obama 19,883,416 20,524,381 21,249,142
Joe Biden 154,878 178,115 285,650
- Republican Candidates -
Mitt Romney 1,137,759 1,275,938 1,556,597
Paul Ryan 260,009 271,829 308,420
- Libertarian Candidates -
Gary Johnson 57,463 70,617 94,041
Jim Gray 219 233 258

The following bar graph shows the increase in the number of followers for each candidate on the dates specified.

(Some browsers and smaller screens tend to make this image hazy. For a clearer view, try clicking on the image to view it separately.)

Obama’s large stats make this graph incredibly difficult to depict completely accurately with a small bar graph. Here is a closer look at the other candidates and how they compare to each other.

So, you have to ask: “Why does Judge Jim Gray only have 258 followers on twitter?”
– The first and obvious reason is that the last tweet he sent was July 31st, and before that was May. He seemed to get into the Twitter thing on March 4th! But his zeal for it apparently waned and he decided against hiring a Social Media expert to utilize this for him.

A social media expert can make or break your social media marketing strategy. For instance, what if he hired a very ambitious person to run his twitter campaign and they tweeted something for him like:

“I support the legalization of #marijuana.” While making it absolutely clear on his twitter profile that he is a Vice Presidential candidate for the #election2012.

I have to smile at that idea, because it could possibly help his popularity or just as easily hurt his campaign. Can you hear the right wing screaming tweets then? “He only wants to lead our country to drugs and and immorality!!” – add in a misspelled word or two.

– Yes, his campaign would have to be handled in a very serious manner. :)

QUESTION: Will social media popularity predict our elected officials?
– Even though many would probably say yes to this, the answer is still: probably not. However, it is important to know the three big reasons why it’s not a good assumption to say that the one who has more Twitter followers will win… (at least, not yet):

  1. Not everyone who will be voting (e.g. many senior citizens), has a Twitter account.
  2. Lots of people too young to vote can (and do) follow candidates on Twitter.
  3. And finally: All social media is GLOBAL. People all over the world are following Twitter, Facebook and YouTube campaigns of the future leaders of other countries.

IT IS ALSO IMPORTANT TO NOTE:
More people of all ages are installing Twitter apps all the time and those young, passionate citizens are turning 18 – the first 2 gaps are closing.

Which candidate is aggressively using Twitter and “Promoted tweets” the most right now?
It looks like @GovGaryJohnson:

Promoted Tweets Gov Gary Johnson

A search on the hash tag #President and produced this promoted tweet by @GovGaryJohnson. (Click for larger view.)

Promoted Tweets 2 Gov Gary Johnson

A search on the hash tag #election2012 and produced this promoted tweet by @GovGaryJohnson. (Click for larger view.)

Dried Up Twits

I have noticed there are quite a few people who begin tweeting some very useful information. Like many technological marketing schemes they seemed to have gotten bored with the prospect of continuing their campaign (You’ve heard it before: “I tried it and Twitter is useless.”) or perhaps didn’t see the instant benefits of their effort or someone failed to measure their campaign’s success.

No matter what the reason, at any rate they discontinue tweeting and leave quite a wealth of knowledge behind for no one ever to see.

Sometimes, it’s not exactly a wealth of knowledge as much as some very handy tips to point us back to the path of success when we get lost in the muddle of information we get bombarded with elsewhere.

In the interest of saving this information, I have decided to weed out some of the better Twitter tips and put it back into good use via this blog when I happen across such morsels.

I will also add in a few Twitter tips here and there for you to launch or revive your own Twitter campaigns.

The new tag will be called: Dried Up Twits;) all in good fun.

Twitter Tools Version 2

    Managing Friends and Followers

    There are some peeps who go and mass follow a bunch of people on twitter and then, mass unfollow after they get the poor unsuspecting peeps who followback. This is SO CHEATING! Find out if people unfollowed you (then unfollow those twits!)

  1. Friend or Follow – Find out who is a friend and who is a follow collector.
  2. Tweepi a geekier, faster way to bulk add quality followers and flush the unfollowers.
  3. Add Us as Friends
    We’ll add you back, as long as you don’t spam us. ;) Amber: @FindingAnswers, Jennifer: @thesnflwrgrl, Kena: @KenaRoth

    Get Tons of Followers on Twitter

  4. Top Twitter Followers – You used to be able to go to this page and follow all of these people on twitter, and they’d follow you back! Now, you are probably going to have better luck following the latest peeps who have commented on this post and they will follow you back.
  5. Twitter Search – search for anything peeps are tweeting. Are they tweeting
  6. Automate a Few Tweets Here and There

    Hey, you aren’t going to be on twitter all at the same times that some of your followers are on, it’s ok to send an automated tweet now and then when you’ve got an important message.

  7. Twuffer – Queue up your tweets with Twuffer, but you cannot queue up tweets that are identical to your current status with this tool.
  8. TwitterFeed – Feed your blog posts to twitter automatically with this awesome little app.
  9. Twitter Profile Make It Yours

  10. TwitBacks – Get a Twitter Background because there is only so much the profile allows you to share about your business, but for personal use remember not to ever share too much info about yourself!!!
  11. Twilk.com has a more fun idea for your twitter background. They will put your twitter followers pics on your background! How fun is that? :)
  12. Follow me, I'll follow you.

    The Unspoken Rules

  13. **BTW, try to keep your ratio of followers and following kinda even. If people see that you follow like 500 people, and you only have 50 following you, then there must be something wrong with you and they shouldn’t follow you. **
  14. Don’t buy into thinking you have to stoop to some kind of tacky twitter tactic to get sales! People who do this just make the marketing tools like twitter less valuable.
  15. TweetLater.com – Send your new followers a “Thanx 4 the Follow” msg – I totally change my mind on this one. After getting hundreds of hey! thanks for the follow! Check out my website www.blahblah.com! Guess what? Everyone does it and because everyone does it, everyone ignores it… so just be classy and don’t.

I wrote the post Twitter Tools in June 8, 2009. And we all know that any post about twitter that old is pretty much useless! I have written updates on the twitter topic, like when we all started using Twitter Lists posted Oct. 31, 2009, and my fun little post on how so many peeps are still twitterpated and how twitter is still definitely working for them posted April 19, 2010. And yet, I still never got around to posting an updated version of my favorite twitter tools list. These tools will still help you reach & keep followers on twitter!



The Dark Side of Social Media

Look at these faces. Aren’t they beautiful? You can’t help but wonder, “What could a young, attractive teen like you have to be sad about?” The following photos are those of real teens who committed suicide after struggling with a vicious epidemic called cyber-bullying.


Ryan Halligan, age 13
Died: October 7, 2003
humiliated and back-stabbed via AOL instant messenger

Megan Meier, age 13
Died: October 17, 2006
betrayed & verbally abused by a friend’s parent who got on MySpace pretending to be a 16 year old boy?!

Phoebe Prince, age 15
Died: January 14, 2010
harassed via text messaging and Facebook

Alexis Pilkington age 17
Died: March 25, 2010
cyber-bullied on Facebook and formspring.me
 
If social media is so powerful that it is affecting our youth on such a deep level, then we must see to it that these powers start getting used for good.

This is sadly becoming a common issue. It could easily become even more common if children are left wading through the masses of social networking sites without a firm grasp on reality and heavy dose of self-assurance. Adolescent socializing is hard enough without adding the global factor of public confrontations. Education and the freedom to be open with a parent or other grown up support system when they are unsure of how to handle certain situations alone will save kids like Ryan, Megan, Phoebe, and Alexis.

Restriction is not the answer.

Many parents and teachers are concerned about sites like MySpace, Facebook, and Twitter providing too much information to and by our youth. Some believe that denying children (including teens) access to social networking sites will protect them from harm. It’s time to get real. Kids will find ways to set up online profiles at their friends’ houses, at school, or even at the local libraries. Electronic harassment is also happening via text messaging, instant messaging, and email.

Re-purposing social networking is the only answer.

Not only is it possible to used to emotionally hurt people, but I believe that it could really save people too. Social networking services that allow continual access to new resources for education and other public services. Students could talk to tutors on MySpace when they are having trouble with a certain homework problem. Alcoholics could get on Facebook and talk to AA leaders and members, even on Friday nights when their buddies are texting them to come out to the bars. Could Twitter become a useful part of the emergency broadcast system by tweeting weather warnings and Amber alerts to everyone’s cell phone within a targeted demographic area?

Ignoring it won’t make it go away.

Social media is swiftly bringing our world into a new age whether we are ready to see the change or not. Before, it was all about information, now it is all about sharing information. Social media could be the answer to some of society’s problems or it could make them much worse. If we decide to look the other way and tell ourselves that it won’t happen to our family, then the problem will get worse. We don’t have to sit by miss this opportunity for growth. We just need to learn how to use it appropriately, then we must teach our children.

No death should be in vain.

Dedicated to: Rachel Burdine, my best friend in middle school committed suicide at age 13. You could have really done so many great things. I still miss you.

Learn more.

Suicide Prevention

Parent Resources
http://www.darkbluesun.com/tag/twitter/
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