Analytical Exposition Text

Twitter Leads People to Success

By. Annisa Rizqi Handayani

Nowadays, people use social media to make many things easier in their lives. They have already been familiar with some social networking services which are mushrooming and becoming an interesting issue. One of the most popular social networking sites which people all around the world talk about is called Twitter. Twitter is a social networking site or micro-blogging service which was created by Jack Dorsey in 2006. This micro-blogging service enables its users to send a text in 140 characters, known as tweets. Then, why does Twitter become so popular? The answer is in how people are really enthusiastic about it. It grows with 140 million active users all around the world with Indonesia on the fifth position.

No wonder, almost every well-known people from Justin Bieber to Barack Obama are now on Twitter. Even Barack Obama, the number one person of the United States, used Twitter as a way of his election campaign. Thus, there are so many benefits of what we can get by using this social networking service. Furthermore, most of the Twitter users are young people who have fresh thought and creativity.

Firstly, Twitter becomes a media that provides real time information and highlight news. There are a lot of Twitter accounts of some Indonesian news media such as @kompascom (the Twitter account of Kompas), @jakpost (the Twitter account of The Jakarta Post), @korantempo (the Twitter account of Tempo), and so on. By following those news accounts, we can get a lot of recent information when signing in Twitter then seeing the timeline.

Additionally, this social networking site offers several features which help its users to stay keep in touch with the other people. Twitter users may share information in 140 characters (tweet) that will appear on their timeline. Then, the other users who follow their account can read the information then filter it. Sometimes, they will ret-tweet such interesting information thus their followers will get the same information. It is like a parallel message.

Furthermore, we can communicate with friends in Twitter by mentioning or sending them direct messages. Some people can also discuss with a group of people about a case in which they interested. Furthermore, in Twitter you can talk about everything not only to they who are in your surrounding but also to people around the world. 

Second, we can use Twitter as a media to improve our writing ability. For example, you like writing poem or wise words. Then, you can write it into 140 characters as a tweet which people, in this case your followers, will read it to give appreciation. Likewise, when you write on a blog and want to introduce your writing to your followers, Twitter will be a right place to promote it. Just share the link on your tweet, put some attractive words on it, then the curious followers will click on the link which leads them to your blog.

Some people have already proven that Twitter may lead its users to the success. One of the successful stories comes from Indonesian young man named Muhammad Arief, or the people know him as Pocong. Once, he created a Twitter account with username @poconggg. He was inspired by an account called @pocongasli which is familiar to its humor tweets. Then, he made his own account and tweet some popular issues which people, especially teenagers interested in. For two years, he got 1.8 million followers who become his fans. They follow all his tweets and re-tweet (re-tweet the other users tweet) them. From the account he created a book entitled “Poconggg Juga Pocong”. The book’s story was adopted into a movie with the same title.

Muhammad Arief, who learned about writing autodidactic, now becomes a famous person with a popular book and movie based on his art-work. From his success story, we get the point that a little thing can be a precious way to lead someone into a big achievement. Of course, Arief or the other people who have the same fate as him did not get the success instantly. They need good effort and long time to reach it.

Third, twitter can be used as a media to promote some products. For your information, over a half of Twitter users follow brands accounts on Twitter. There are some popular brands that use Twitter to introduce and promote their products. Moreover, a big company like Starbucks Coffee uses Twitter to communicate with its consumers and send service update. The coffee company always increases engagement between the company and its consumers. Starbucks gives innovation by giving some quizzes, door prizes, or reply the little tweets. In Indonesia, we have Maicih, super hot crispy chip (Indonesian translation: Keripik) which becomes very popular in Indonesia because of the creativity of its creator. Maicih is cassava crispy chips (Indonesian Translation: Keripik Singkong) which is spiced of super-hot flavor and covered by an attractive brand. Since Maicih did not have a permanent place to sell the product, they sell it using mobile method. The reseller or they call them as Jendral Maicih move from one place to another by car instead of stay in one place sell the product. They call the sale system as gentayangan (English Translation: ramble). Therefore, they inform the consumers by tweeting the spots where they will stop and sell the product, complete with the time. This system becomes a pioneer of the birth of the similar kind of business, such as Keripik Karuhun and Keripik Setan that use Twitter to promote their products.

Maicih is a brilliant idea of Bob, a young man who wanted to introduce the Indonesian traditional food to the young people. In the beginning, he promoted Maicih via Twitter to make more practice and efficient. Moreover, most of his friends who were the first marketing target of the product, have Twitter account so that it was easier to promote the product toward them. According to him, by promoting his product through social media, he did not need to spend a lot of financial capital and did not need a specific place. He said that for people who try to start a new business, it is a good decision to choose such social media website. Moreover, the marketing segment is the high-tech people. He added that it needs a trick to keep the promotion effectively, for instance we can make a brand that will be the talk of many people.

Using Twitter as a business media in virtual world is not only the case of promotion the product. It is important to create a smart strategy in order to improve the consumers’ trust and keep them follow the brand. In promoting its product, a company did not have to tweet advertising in their each tweet. Since twitter users did not expect to see that kind of tweets every time, the brand account may insert some entertaining tweets such as quizzes, tips, wise words, and so on.

There are some benefits that we can get from promotion on Twitter, for example, we do not need to spend money and energy because it is free (economist), by introducing the product on Twitter people around the world will know about it (effective), we have a link with the consumers, and from Twitter we can evaluate the marketing response toward our product (efficient). It also influences the way our consumers give assessment toward us. Twitter is a unique social media that may give a big effect toward some brands and companies, if they understand how to integrate the service into marketing strategy.

In addition, Twitter has a new system which will give the users money for free. The system is called Twittad. The first step to get into the system is we must have a Twitter account with at least 300 followers. To make easier, we can use the username of our Twitter to sign up in Twittad. Then, we have to enroll in an advertising site that has a link with Twitter. After that, we need to put in a logo from Twittad in our profile account. The number of our followers influences the cost. The more followers we have, the higher cost can be offered. In the end of the attachment term, Twittad will send a number of money to us. Although Twittad is not popular yet, from its existence we know that Twitter becomes a mediator for us to get money easily.

Based on the arguments above, Twitter is such a very useful social media which able to lead people to get success. It has a lot of advantages that can be applied into various things. This site is more than an effective alternative media to introduce many things toward people. It is a new high-quality system which leads people to get a better life without spends too much money. Therefore, we can learn from the success stories of the people who use Twitter wisely.

Thus, we know that good or bad depends on our choice. If we exploit the technology in a good way, surely we will get the useful result. On the contrary, we will get nothing or even disadvantage when we misapply it.