Through my Twitter project (@GateJumbo), I am trying to entertain members of the Tufts community, especially undergraduates — my main audience –, by transforming references pertinent to our culture as Jumbos into elements of conspiracy theories.
So far, I have not been successful in getting my target audience to follow and interact with my account. In fact, the last time I checked, I only had one follower — the class’s Twitter account –, so I need to come up with some strategies to present myself to this audience. I tried messaging some groups I am part of that I think would enjoy the content on @GateJumbo, but it seems that none of them followed me. It was also suggested to me that I should start tagging student organizations from Tufts on my account, but I am yet to find these groups’ Twitter usernames to tag.
Perhaps, one way in which I can create more engagement with my project — and even build a community around it — is by sticking to a “main” hashtag — like #GirlsLikeUs and #BlackintheIvory — as a means of marking and identifying my content, making it stand out and be more easily located.
In revamping my Twitter project, I would imagine that the longer Twitter narratives that I’ve encountered —Zola’s #TheStory, Egan’s “Black Box” — have some elements that might be worth adding to my work. One example is how they developed stories over numerous tweets while keeping their readers somewhat “hooked” enough to keep reading.
As I move forward with my Twitter project, these are some possible routes I can take:
- Keep on releasing smaller stories (micro-conspiracies)
- Come up with one longer narrative that “connects the dots” — maybe I could do this for #PaniniGate
- Do a bit of 1 and 2 — create 2-4 micro-conspiracies that will then get tied into one or two longer threads, which comprise a longer, all-encompassing narrative.
Though I still need to brainstorm paths 1 and 2 individually, I believe following path 3 would make the most sense.