TWITTER? THANKS, BUT NO THANKS!

...Written by Tijjani Muhammad Musa

I keep inviting my Facebook Friends and Followeres to Follow me on Twitter @112teejay and many have found the invite too challenging to honor. A lot do not even know what am talking about. Others simply ignore it, finding it too confusing for them to engage in, after paying a visit or two or attempting to start twitting process. There are those who find Twitter too boring for their liking. There too many big names, corporate organizations, institutions, NGOs, stars and celebrities for them to be noticed, so they feel intimidated. Some lack the ability to create deep meanings with so few a set of letters i.e. 140 characters, that is the limit for tweets. 

Then of course, there's the ego part. Some Facebook, whatsapp, 2go etc local champions who have established a huge reputation on such social networks can not cope with being irrelevant on the much more matured and seriouse giant-fishes ocean of a social medium that Twitter is. So they prefer to keep away, comfortable with basking in their small fish pond. But, until one can make a mark on a global scale, inter-mingling with people and outfits one dare not stand next to, abilities and unique talents of each individual is nothing but a ruse. Period.

Well then, if you are finally curious enough to give it a shot, come along and I'll be your guide before you find your way and become my guide thereafter. Just don't forget to Follow me when you sign-up. I go by the user name @112teejay. My Profile name is Tijjani M. M. and my "Bio" statement is "Don't let anybody touch you with anything, except if by allowing that you'll become a better person"

Twitter is simple. It is like short message service (SMS) texting used in mobile phone communications. Using just 140 letters, one is expected to create a "Tweet" that will make an impact, shaking our global village, and many do achieve that indeed, creating what is known as a "viral" tweet. Meaning that one's composition about something current and topical gets so interesting that virtually every nook and cranies of the medium re-echoes the tweet. By the way, have I mentioned that you can attach a picture, image or even video to your tweet? Yes, you can. 

To start, one must first register a User Name, using a valid email and such a name usually contains the "@" sign at the beginning of it followed by alphabets, numbers and/or other writing characters like dash, underscore, hyphen etc. Having a unique, exotic and catchy name can give you a head start with followers... If your name is Musa Rahamat for example, you can settle for @RahmatMusa, @MusaRahmat, @MosesRah, @EmRah or even take on something entire different like @EmeRahld or @Precious_MR and so on.

For those of you who think Twitter is for celebrities. It is not. It is most definitely for you. You are the celebrity, if not anybody else's. And the ability to express volumes and depth of meanings in a few words is a rare gift given to very few humans in history, Muhammad SAWS being one them. In so few a word, his teachings carry unquantified meanings that take volumes upon volumes to interprete. It is also one of the Quranic style of expressions. A simple verse containing only 19 letters like its opening "Bismillahir Rahmanir Rahim" translates as 'In the name of Allah (God), The Most Gracious, The Most Merciful', and yet it overwhelms the most brilliant of minds. Now, copying that challenging style of communication, Twitter gives you 140, SMS gives 160 and Facebook limits some to 420!

Like all social media, there's a risk involved in twitting just like there's a risk involved in all things in life. It is a two-edge sword that can be used for good or otherwise. But, it is nothing you've not handled before. If you have a problem about being expressive beyond 140 letters, there's the URL shortener available for free on the internet for you to create a link and thus direct your Followers to a website that could accommodate your full length articles. Or you can break your post into sets of 140 tweets inter-linked for us to connect. I do that alot with my poetic tweets. 

As a tweeter, some accounts  would find your words so agreeable they'll retweet or RT it to their followers too to read. Others would find your tweet so apt they'll Favorite it. Whoever wants to talk in private to you would Direct Message or DM you, just like FB Inbox. Those who know you or find common interests with you or find your words inspiring or motivating enough would you Follow you and vise-versa. Offers are made for you to follow a twitter account in exchange for you to be followed back. Some fulfill their promise, others don't and that more or less is the way the Twitter cookie crumbles.

If you want to kill two birds with one stone, like make money while engaging in twittering? You can actually do that by offering your literary and other abilities to those who are forever seeking for writers or other to contribute to their websites. Then there are those who'll engage you to tweet on their behalf being a humanitarian, social, entertainment, literary or environmental celebrity that you are, for a fee. You can also tweet about products or services that you or your organization can offer or render to would-be interested customers and clients. There are other ways to make money too online. When you commence tweeting, you gradually find out.

Briefly, that is what the game is all about. "So, who's game now?"

(c)(r) Tijjani M. M. 131013 10:52:18