Creative Retweeting

I started recognizing fellow Ontario Educators a while ago.  Twitter has this crowd-evolved thing called “Follow Friday” and so I thought it would be neat to recognize those who are actively tweeting.  There are people that we call “the usual suspects” that everyone talks about, make the “must follow lists”, but often go missing in action.  How can you recommend following someone who isn’t doing anything?

In the beginning, it really was easy – the nerd in me tapped into the API and did a lot of things automatically.  Things at Twitter changed and it made things a little more challenging and, quite frankly, a lot more manual that I would like but it takes about 15 minutes to parse content and send out a few tweets.  The big payoff happens when the lot of us get together at common events and immediately have a connection with each other.  Hence, the need for a good Twitter picture.  I’ve told her directly, but the person I think looks most like their Twitter picture is undoubtedly, in my mind, @SafinaN.

The thought always was that by naming names, people could increase their contacts and it really does seem to happen.  But, there’s something else that’s happening.  People, getting noticed, are retweeting the message.  The results would be interesting to graph but that’s for another day.

When I create the Twitter message, I always start with “Follow Friday – Active Ontario Educators – “.  That’s a lot of characters and most rational people would have just used the shorter #FF.  But, when the original message is retweeted, people are using my extraneous characters as wiggle room to shorten before retweeting and further engaging those in the original message.

As I’m reading this morning, I see:

@dougpete thanks for the mention! Happy weekend! 🙂 @tomsywt @GilesCondors @BadiukMrs @paul_aniceto @MrsKHowell @ArtsHWDSB — Jocelyn Schmidt (@MsSchmidt_YR) June 7, 2013
======

“@dougpete: #Follow Friday – Active Ontario Educators – @mrbillforrester @missmalcolm @gingerh7777 @ballantynedj @cemac64” Thank you Doug! — Cathy MacDonald (@cemac64) June 7, 2013
======

Thank-you! RT @dougpete: #FF Educators – @joanne_babalis @RChids @GMontgomery10 @missmalcolm @timrobinsonj @wheeler_laura @KT4education — Laura Wheeler (@wheeler_laura) June 7, 2013
======

Merci @dougpete. A great #FollowFriday @beachcat11 @mathtech @urvshah @SheilaSpeaking @marclijour @sarlowes @kenwhytock” — Dan (@LostFanDan) June 7, 2013
======

RT @dougpete: #FF – Active Ontario Educators – @AlanaCallan @SeanKellyHWDSB @JoanVinallCox @DavidFifeVP @pattimarathon @TDOttawa — Safina N. (@SafinaN) June 7, 2013
======

Thanks @dougpete Happy Friday everyone, enjoy your day! 🙂 @quoteflections @zbpipe @monicabatac @TechieAng @GeraldtonSteve @GingerPatti — Jenni van Rees (@jennivanrees) June 7, 2013
======

RT Thanks @dougpete: Happy #FF everyone – @joanne_babalis @RChids @GMontgomery10 @missmalcolm @timrobinsonj @wheeler_laura @KT4education — Grant Montgomery (@GMontgomery10) June 7, 2013
======

“@dougpete: #Follow Friday – @mrbillforrester @missmalcolm @CecilRoachSO @swartz19 @gingerh7777 @ballantynedj @cemac64” Thanks Doug!! — Heather FultonTouzin (@gingerh7777) June 7, 2013
======

@dougpete @stepanpruch @Coolwired @lancasterbarb @GHarris01 @FlyontheCWall @markwcarbone Thanks Doug, and a happy #ff to you as well! — J. Broomfield (@broomerjg) June 7, 2013
======

@dougpete @joanne_babalis @GMontgomery10 @missmalcolm @timrobinsonj @wheeler_laura @KT4education thanks Doug! Have a great Friday everyone! — R.T. Chidiac (@RChids) June 7, 2013
======

Thanks @dougpete! Happy #FollowFriday everyone! @BrunoPallotto @bachtrac @crutherford @jacbalen @AmandaMAllison — Colleen Rose (@ColleenKR) June 7, 2013
======

Gotta love the creativity!