17 October, 2013

Twitter Tips: When to Reply, Retweet, and Favorite



The world is full of adventures and wonderment and journeys on which to go, and loot and experience along the way to collect. Those things are complicated enough without having to figure out the proper time to utilize social networking options.


That’s why I’m here!

To teach the proper etiquette for the appropriate times to use reply, retweet, and favorite on Twitter!

REPLY

This option is often overused by Twittererers for such things as communicating with friends or praising someone for doing a good job.

Reply should only be used in these circumstances:
  • Telling the executive producer of the thing you claim is your favorite TV program how much you hate their show, their writing on the show, the way they run the writer’s room, their hiring skillset in the writing team’s selection process, and just their general disposition/ability to breathe.
  • Telling the band/person you claim is your favorite musician how much you hate their newest material.
  • To say something nice to someone.
  • Threatening to kill individuals on what you claim is your favorite sporty team for only scoring 3 sporty times in the sporty thing you claim to love.
  • Freaking out at your favorite actor for personal choices in their life that have no actual impact on your life.
  • Attacking the life-choices of people who are different from you, who are living lives you have never and likely will never experience.

RETWEET

There are only a few times when you should retweet anything because retweeting costs personal effort and can potentially reflect badly on you when sharing something more interesting than you. Do not help people realize how lame you are.

The appropriate time to retweet:
  • When you think your followers would really enjoy something.
  • When it’s the most pedestrian thing one of your friends has ever said.
  • It’s a picture of a puppy or kitten you’ve retweeted before.
  • It’s a video that already has 10,000,000 views. Because. It needs to be noticed. Again.

FAVORITE

This is a robust social networking tool that is underutilized. It has a vast amount of potential to affect people on an emotional level.

Use this when:
  • Something someone says is brilliant! Or their video is actually amazing and hasn’t gone viral (obviously it hasn’t since only about 3% of all viral videos exhibit any real talent). Or it’s a news story that should be shared with the world because it’s super important. Favorite it so NO ONE ELSE KNOWS ABOUT IT!
  • Just to mess with someone you've accepted is funnier, smarter, and more interesting than you. Don’t retweet them. Don’t reply to them. They are a threat to you. Favorite what they said. Not because you want to acknowledge their genius. Not because you want to validate them in some way. Not because you want to keep it around to reflect upon and bask in the glory of its sparkly genius. Do it because it’s super annoying! They see in the feed that you pressed “Favorite” but not “Retweet” and it will drive them absolutely nuts. They'll scream at the screen "I DON'T UNDERSTAND! JUST RETWEET IT! RETWEET IT! WHY???? WHY????" Keep doing it until they delete their account or block you.
  • When you plan on reading something later but don’t have time.
  • When someone says something nice to you. [edit: invalidated by Reply rule]