His eyes glaze over if he’s talking to just one person (1 RT? 1 Like?), especially if there’s a larger group waiting to listen to him. Every name he utters is followed by the spelling of the relevant Twitter handle. His wife, his father, Les Hinton…
A social media guru must give up all things earthly to make his presence felt online, right? Like any true guru, Sree too preaches to his followers, and he does it all for free as part of #SreeTwitterTour. Amen to that.
It was a diverse bunch of people who got together on a Saturday afternoon to listen to Sree Sreenivasan, ex-digital chief of Met Museum and future Chief Digital Officer of New York City, speak about Social Media.
From journalists and digital bankers to brand managers, gamers and social media strategists, everyone looking to boost their social media game — and hadn’t made any travel plans for the long weekend — was there.
Take away
“The basic premise of Twitter (and other social media) is that everyone is selling something — an idea, a product, or a service,” Sree starts off, before proceeding to give you tips and tricks about how to sell it better
For example, he says that the life of a Twitter link is one hour. After that, it’s as good as gone. So it’s up to you to tweak it, add something new and re-share it. If you’re one of those who’s constantly annoyed by old tweets showing up again on your feed, you now know whom to blame.
“Hashtags are underappreciated,” Sree proclaims, adding that making them memorable, unique and hard to ‘hijack’ is vital. For example, a hashtag used by the students of 2009 batch School of Journalism — Columbia University (#CJ09) were cross-linked when the Canadian Janitors association had their annual meet — so making them unique is key. Tough call? By all means. But that’s why social media expertise is a wanted skill in the job market today. And no, spending hours on Twitter or FB does not instantly qualify you for it.
So, what is Sree’s Social Media Success Formula? “Build a network when you don’t need it,” he says, encouraging people to follow, retweet and tag people they would like to connect to, before they actually need to. Also, be an “early tester and a late adopter”, he says, giving the example of his Snapchat account, one he started but hasn’t yet “snapped” on.
Taking his advice, I tweet a quote Sree shares, “The scarcest resource of the 21st Century is Human Attention,” and tag Les Hinton, ex-publisher of The Wall Street Journal . Within 10 minutes, Hinton’s handle has favourited my tweet, and I have two new random followers.
Advice from Raheel Khursheed, Twitter’s head of News, Politics and Government, followed. In his shorter session, he gave some pointed advice about the “attention economy” today. People spend an average of 186 minutes on their phones every 24 hours, unlocking their phones about 280 times a day, and the average attention span is just seven to eight seconds. If you’re trying to cash in on this attention economy, you have to create “thumbstoppers” (as Sree calls it) to make people stop while they’re scrolling.
How? “Your checklist should make sure a tweet is visual, interactive and intimate,” says Khursheed, who also mentions that adding your brand to a hashtag isn’t the best idea.
According to Twitter, hashtags without branding tend to work better and have better recall. Also, native media tweets and the recently-introduced polls feature get the most engagement, he adds.
