“Micro-Rhetoric”and Twitter

Shealene Johnson, Kathleen Cinar &

Ashley Pappalardo

What is Twitter?• A place to broadcast yourself/a place for

discussion

• Important for users to add to the community

• No rules—short self-expression, often quick witted/humorous/informative

Just getting started?• Followers:

- Quality over quantity

• How to draw followers:- Be interesting (read/re-tweet/respond to what

others want to read)

- Be conversational (interactive)

- Follow relevant people(common interests)

Know your followersReceive e-mail when new followers arise:

Use settings to monitor e-mail notifications

Click around to learn about followers:Twittermailer: tool used to get peoples profiles/recent tweets

Easy to forget who follows you/who you follow:DoesFollow: check if person is following youFriendOrFollow: see followers fans/friends

TwitterSheep: see what followers say/what interests them

Unfollow:

go to person’s page & click remove• Too many tweets, long winded, spam, etc• Usually person won’t know

Occasional 3rd party apps that tell people—not recommended

- Leads to people obsessing about popularity- Focus on making positive relationships, don’t worry about the rest

TweetingTo build relationships tweet a few

times a week/day Average = apprx. 4tweets/day Different for everyone—NO RULES

ReplyingFirst, Twitter-user will get message:

@usernameThis is a public message—all your

followers can see thisProper to respond—usually a friendly

messageRespond with @theirusername

Don’t be too vague—add context to responseFollowers may not know who you are tweeting

Direct MessagesPeer to peer communication: private message

to one person

Re-tweetingReposting someone else’s post—always give credit Aim for clear message (140

characters or less)Leave room for people to re-tweet News spreads quickly

To be more interesting comment on why link is important/what it means to you

Negative: Page full of same re-tweets—add a spin to it

What to re-tweet:How-to’s

NewsWarnings

Freebies/contestsUnique term/phrase

#Hash-tagging Used to group messages by

categoryWhen talking to a group of people hash tag subject matterExample: I don’t get question number 2 #MathHomework

Collect ideasShare responses to a questionClarify what your tweeting aboutExample: Watching Scotty McCreary sing right now! #AmericanIdol

Often used for sarcasm/humorExample: Just took my philosophy test #FAIL

Click on hash tag to see what other people tweet about it

Tricks of the tradeAsk questions for followers—can be conversation starter

Good ‘tweeter’ will repost best answerAdds Twitter value and improves your reputation

Answer other peoples questionsTwitter can be helpful for people to find jobs/schools/etc.

Spam—DO NOT SPAM PEOPLEMass tweeting with intent to sell/promoteMass message to unknown people can portray someone as a spammerMessages including suspicious links may be considered spamDirect messages: impersonal message to specific person

Automatic direct messages are a form of spamTwitter is an opt-in medium—you choose who to followFollow Twitter’s spam account (twitter.com/spam)

Direct message name of spam accountsSubmit request to twitter Block spammer (go to page, block is on the right)Un-follow spammer

How is Twitter anexample of rhetoric?

It involves 5 canons of rhetoric

1. Invention: coming up with ideas in anargumentWhat you invent to tweet

2. Arrangement: Order you arrange your writing

Deciding where to place your hashtag in a tweet3. Style: How a person says a statementTweeters can have a sarcastic, serious, funny, etc.,

tone4. Memory: Others remember what you tweetWhen celebrities tweet or important news is

tweeted about often people tend to remember 5. Delivery: similar to style, appeals to ethos,

logos and pathos (how a tweet is presented)

Dog just died #timeforanewpetDog just died #sadday

Connections toDigital Rhetoric:

SpeedReachAnonymityInteractivityEthos; logos; pathosKairos (timing)Collaboration & community

QUESTIONS:• What does everyone think about Twitter?

• How many people have Twitters?• For whoever doesn’t have a Twitter why do you

choose not to?• How often do you Tweet?• What do you Tweet about?

• Who do you follow? (Friends/Celeberties/etc.)• How is twitter better/worse than Facebook?