Hash it out – My next great Twitter adventure
When I started 3S stories on Nov 17,2008, my goal was to tweet a short-short-short story five days a week for a year. With the exception of a couple weeks holidays, I pulled it off. I learned a lot about editing, about impact, and more importantly, about the social value of Twitter.
I wanted to keep 3S_stories a pure fiction venue. But the social nature of Twitter wouldn’t allow it. I found myself getting LOL replies, and laudatory DMs, and retweets that increased my followers by ten or 15 people a week. I replied with thank yous, responded in kind by retweeting my faves. Before I knew it, I was part of a community; sharing jokes, having conversations, doling out support and advice and receiving the same in return. I don’t have the most followers but the ones I have, I like.
Which brings me to my Twitter meme/goal/conspiracy for 2010: The Hashtag.
The hashtag functions as a sort of collective bookmark on Twitter. It’s that addendum to a tweet marked with an ‘#’. They allow tweets on a theme or topic to be archived and easily searched. You can see examples under Trending Topics on the right hand side of your Twitter page.
Here’s some example I contributed to the Dec 31st #BadDoctorWhoSynopsis:
Other examples from November:
3S_stories@JodiMacArthur Captain Ahab’s Seafood Palace? Christine’s Drive-In ? Fried and Freshly Juiced? The Crepes of Plath? #literaryrestaurants
JodiMacArthur@3S_stories: That’s ridiculous. How about. Lord Of The Fries?
Chris Farley was my Sensei, David Spade my sparring partner. #iamabadninja
Uniform accidentally bleached, I am limited to missions in the Arctic.#iamabadninja
Fleeing pursuer I forward roll over parked car, get hit by passing city bus.#iamabadninja
Get the idea?
Hash tags provide context. They leverage the social aspect of Twitter and invite participation, which is a direction I want to go with 3S_stories.
Will you join me in creating random acts of creativity? All that’s required is that you be brief, be relevant, and interesting. You can do that, can’t you?
In the immortal words of Tom Hanks in Big:
“I don’t get it.”
Trev, random acts of creativity. I get it. I appreciate it. It will take time for me to participate in it. You, never stop promoting it. Hash tags, wo ming bai.