Why Social Media Matters for Israel Advocacy: Twitter

Guest post from Emunah  with help from DrMike.

Why Social Media Matters for Israel Advocacy: Twitter 

 

What is Twitter?

Twitter is often described as micro-blogging. You send and receive messages of less than 140 characters. You can use Twitter via your smart phone or  your home computer. The messages can range from brief political observations,  referrals to Facebook pages,  significant articles, blog posts, or youtubes.

People generally need to "follow" someone’s Twitter feed in order to see their updates. Anyone or any organization can create a Twitter feed, and build followers. This takes time.  A good way to start is by following the people you want to follow you (activists, bloggers, journalists)  If you like what they have to say use the "RT" - retweet- function.  The more times an item is retweeted, the  higher visibility it gets.

Other ways to increase your following:

1.  reply to a tweet by a prominent figure with a response that is interesting and/or humorous enough to get the original tweeter to either a) reply back to you or b) retweet your reply.  then people might notice you and can choose to follow you.  

2.  mention someone (favorably) in your tweet with the @address and that person will see that you have mentioned him/her if they check their "mentions" screen. 

"Hashtags" in Twitter are preceded by the # sign. Twitter users use hashtags to refer to a topic that’s being discussed by several people at once. (During Operation Pillar of defense, for example, the pro-Israel advocacy group used "#israeunderfire" to exchange information.) Its considered particularly cool to get your hashtag trending- that means thousands of people are using it at once.

Using hashtags a valuable way to gain visibility and exposure

Why does Twitter matter?

It’s a way to bypass the traditional gatekeepers of the mainstream media.

It’s a way to amplify our voices.

It’s a way to network with fellow advocates across the traditional boundaries of time and space  

It’s a  great way to receive and spread real time information.

Time and time again  independent advocates have been able to share and distribute information using Twitter, well before it reaches the mainstream media.

Live Blogging

Trends begin in the Bay area. People all over the world watch what happens here.With Twitter and a smart phone, you can communicate instantly with Israel advocates worldwide.

Who Should I follow?
There are excellent advocates for Israel using Twitter. Do you have any other favorites? Let us know.

Start with:

 @AmbassadorOren

@ASoldiersMother

@avimayer

@ChallahHuAkbar

@CiFWatch

@elderofziyon

@GPOIsrael

@IDFSpokesperson

@HillelNeuer

@Israel

@IsraelinUSA

@IsraelMFA

@israellycool

@ofirgendelman

@SDoesntMatter

@StandWithUs

@WarpedMirrorPMB

UPDATE:

Some helpful tips to get your hashtag world trending 

1. Wait till the hashtag is revealed, and tweet the EXACT hashtag (use copy/paste to avoid mistakes).

2. Make ORIGINAL tweets with it - retweets are NOT counted for trending by Twitter.

3. What you tweet doesn't matter for trending. Add the hashtag to every tweet, even if u are responding to someone else about a totally different subject.

4. Encourage others, especially those with lots of  followers to join. 

5. Send as many tweets in as short a time as possible.

6. Be ON TIME !! We need that massive explosion of tweets with that hashtag !

7. If the hashtag hasn't trended after an hour, you can still keep sending tweets about the subject, but it becomes highly unlikely that it will still be able to cause a trend.

8. Use ONLY ONE hashtag per tweet, or it doesn't count towards trending. A tweet with 5 times the hashtag is useless, as is a tweet with any other hashtag added.