KeMPhi Twitter Party: Re-evaluating…

The 29^th of October, 2016 was a milestone for Kenyan fans of the Filipino showbiz. KeMPhi planned a twitter party in which Kenyans were able to let their pleas of having Filipino celebrities pay a visit to Kenya be heard.  Our friends from the Philippines as well as our Nigerian brothers were also on cue and helped us with the Twitter party. Indeed Africa has not been recognized and although our initiative may not bear fruits right away, we hope that in the near future we will look behind on this day as one that we will be proud of.

 For us to get some serious attention however, we will have to do more than just one twitter party. Hopefully not too many either before we get some serious attention because it can be tedious repeating the same thing over and over and not getting any reactions.

Back to the Twitter party, it was a somewhat successful party although we had some setbacks. These are the things that I want to address in this post so that we can be better prepared for our next twitter party. This is going to be a long post so I hope you can be patient enough to read through it.

The first thing was our numbers. My objective from the get go was to have our tagline trending. This is no easy task as I have mentioned multiple times and we would need thousands of Tweets using the same tagline for it to appear on the top 10 trending topics. As it is, we didn’t even make it to the top twenty. This goal was immediately thrown out the window the moment I realized that I had about ten people tweeting with me. This is why I insist on having more numbers. In my mind, I was thinking about 1000 people joining the party since we’re almost getting to 3000 followers on Facebook.  Unfortunately, my mind and reality don’t seem to agree with each another hence we need more people committed and willing to do this.

Second thing was the tagline. Almost everyone who was online was using their own tagline and I had to take some time off my tweeting binge to correct people. We has spelling mistakes, wrong arrangement of the words and hashtag signs which we’re not supposed to be included. The tagline has to be the same for everyone. This could be the biggest reason why we might never appear on the trending topics list if ever we will have the chance to. The moment we understand that the tagline has to be the same for everyone, I don’t even need to announce it. The moment you log on and see the tagline I’m using, check the arrangement of the words, the spelling, and whether there are hashtag signs or not and just copy it to your tweets. We however managed to correct ourselves and got a rhythm going. It was smooth sailing from then on and I must say that you guys missed out because we had massive fun doing the twitter party.

The third thing was the few people who didn’t include the tagline in their tweets. It was extremely frustrating and I couldn’t help but wonder what these people we’re doing. I don’t want to seem ungrateful but as much as you took your time to join the party, you were not helping at all. I don’t know how many times I have to insist that you have to include the tagline in your tweets, whether you are replying a tweet, quoting it or writing your own. Please let’s check on this issue. Correcting people not only embarrasses them, but it dissuades them and I guess that’s why some of you logged off. I however had to do it so that we can all be on the same page.

The fourth thing was an issue with replying to tweets. With a party as intense as the one we had, it would be impossible for me to reply to everyone. I had only ten people tweeting me and I had over 20 notifications per minute. You can understand how I might not see your tweet in time to reply it in the midst of writing tweets to keep the party going. Most of the people who stuck with me throughout the party were new twitter users and they fell to the rhythm quite easily. I was extremely proud and impressed and as much as they we’re looking to me to lead, they understood the flow and followed it. To be honest the ones who gave me the morale to keep going. So if ever we’re doing something as intense, tweet and tweet some more. Don’t wait for replies.

The last thing was that most of us said they couldn’t be able to navigate through twitter. Like I said, most of the people who did the party with me are new twitter users. In fact, their eggs are yet to hatch and I’m already starting to recognize them by their colors. (Which reminds me, let’s put some pictures on those profiles tuondoe mayai…) However, they managed to learn on the job, which I commend them for. I asked one of them, Judy Kim to tell us how she was able to make it through because she was the one person I remember not correcting. I also got more notifications from her account than any other which means that she got the point was to post as many tweets as possible. This is what she had to say…

“About the party yesterday, I was very excited to be a part of it. I think I was very excited that even though I didn’t know my way around the twitter world, I just found myself do it thanks to my admin for the instructions that I followed to the letter. It was great sharing our experiences with each other and having the Philippines tweet us back. I can’t wait for another party. I hope they saw our commitment and will visit us soon. It was a great experience and I loved every bit of it.”

Thank you Judy for the message, I hope it will encourage more people. Let’s also learn to follow instructions because they are there to guide us.

With all these issues enumerated, we need a lot of practice with our tweeting skills. This is why I introduced the live party daily during the 6 pm program. We however created our twitter accounts at the last minute and therefore had little practice. Our daily twitter parties will continue for now so that we can learn slowly and be better prepared for our next twitter party. It is only during the hour of the program and therefore urge everyone interested in learning to join us.

 In the next party, we will consider schedules and taglines so that we can choose something that is appropriate for most people.

With this extremely long post that I hope you read to the end, I leave you with this; mistakes are part of learning so embrace them but don’t repeat them. Instead, take the best out of them and learn. This way, we shall have a more successful party next time.

Special thanks to our friends in The Philippines who backed us up and replied to our tweet. Thanks Team Paumaj, Team Lizquen, Team Danrich and Team Sofiego.