Tweeting from the Id

I'm helping, along with three other folks, to promote Baton Rouge Entrepreneurship Week through social media. At first, I thought, "What in the world have I gotten myself into?" Now I'm thinking, "How do I love Tweetdeck, let me count the ways..."(Seriously,  I can schedule a week's worth of tweets at once and then not have to remember to tweet at specific times. Brilliant stuff.)

Through a class I'm taking at LSU, and through talking with these PR and Tourism professionals about this week-long event, I've discovered being the "voice" of an organization on a social media account is kind of up my alley. I suppose it goes back to my newspaper days and writing what we called refers. (Not pronounced as "a doctor refers a patient," but as "hey, I never would have guessed your Dad smoked reefer in the '70s"). Refers are those little gems found on a section front of a newspaper that -- appropriately -- refer you to other stories or information inside the paper. These nuggets of personality and wisdom were anonymous - no bylines or photo credits. And they were generally my favorite things to write.

Being one of the voices for @BREW_2011 on Twitter (and for the organization's Facebook page) has brought me back to the days of writing short, informative quips that are designed to grab your attention and gain your interest. These quips come from a special side of  my brain, the part that can boil things down to its essential ingredients with just enough snark to - I hope - make people either turn to that page or click on that link. Freud called that part of my brain (the dark, desire-centered part) the Id. Tweeting from the Id works for me. And apparently it works for the masses, too. I saw this tweet in my newsfeed this past weekend and laughed at humanity:

What' I've learned is not only does your message on social media  have to have "meat" to it (good information), it has to be engaging and, preferably, funny. People gravitate toward funny and informative. They retweet funny. They follow informative. If my Id can continue to think of snarky things and turn it into a conversational tweet, then I'm fairly certain my help for the BREW project will be useful. And it can only help this sweet digital brand o' mine in the long run, too.