Every once in a while a Tweet or Facebook post comes out of the streams that stand out a little more than the average post or update.
Here’s one that happened yesterday.
https://twitter.com/ShawnaCoxon/status/496768517665226752
To a lot of people this won’t look like much, but to a teen, well…it speaks to them. SO let’s take a look at the anatomy of this tweet.
Hashtags
#Molly #Veld2014 #Toxic – Veld is an electronic music festival that happens in Toronto and at this years party it appears a drug caused two deaths and a bunch of hospitalizations. Molly is the nickname for MDMA or 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine. Also known as Ecstasy, aka…a party drug. Toxic was the problem here and that sends a clear message.
The use of these hashtags targeted the desired audience and the drug believed to be the root of the problem.
Two to three hashtags are ideal with two being better.
Context
Molly wasn’t just a drug in this tweet…”she” was hidden in plain sight not as a thing, but with human characteristics which made talking about her easier.
Information
Why Molly is a problem, a phone number to call and removal of the fear of being charged for taking her home or having her were all clear.
Audience
The tweet was in the language of kids trying to hide something. It was all coded. Not to be so obscure as to not be understood, but in a cool, relateable way that kids would understand.
Size
140 characters available…140 used. This is the only problem if you are looking for ReTweets with comments. Not so much of a big deal since Twitter re-worked the RT function a while back.
Smaller is always better, but there isn’t too much you could cut out of this without losing some of a very important and big message. Here’s a slight re-work…
Did u get #Molly at #VELD2014 & take her home? Call 416-808-2222 or drop her off at a police stn-no charges. She’s #toxic
Aim for 100 characters whenever you can as a maximum. Not always realistic, but a great goal to always go for.
Boost
Given the amount of text, this isn’t possible in this case, but adding a picture of Molly would have been gold for parents to see.
But, you could easily jump over to Facebook and make a much bigger information blast with pics and links and not worry so much about the real estate available for use.
Nice tweet @ShawanCoxon!
You already mentioned a photo Tim. The only thing I would add is to put this up on Instagram as well. That has a huge following for the youth demographic you want, where the use of multiple and prolific hashtags isn’t as frowned upon as in Twitter, and you’re not as limited with characters. The open drug culture on Instagram is quite apparent. That would provide maximum reach.
OK…now that I’m not on a cell phone, I can reply to you properly!
The use of Instagram would be great for this cause. Sadly, some agencies haven’t grasped it as well as others yet or in some cases are completely mis-using the platform.
On the side of photo…this would be a great opportunity to atomize the content and use…. (and with that I just erased the next sentence.) A new blog post has just been born! Thanks for the inspiration Koopy!!