Shutterstock

According to a statistical study from Georgia Tech, you don’t have to be as famous as Warren Buffett, who gained almost 100,000 followers on Twitter in just over an hour, to lure in large numbers of Twitter followers. The key, the study found is sharing information. And not the kind of information like what you’re having for lunch. But rather details about news, social issues, and politics; in other words, things of significance for the public at large.

Where it does help to show a little “self expression,” to use the language of the study, is having an opinion about what you’re tweeting.

Also be positive. “Complaining or otherwise expressing negative sentiment inhibited follower growth, while expressing positive sentiment helped facilitate it,” reports SocialTimes.

“It matters what you say, and how you say it,” study authors Eric Gilbert and C.J. Hutto and Sarita Yardi wrote.

And cut down on the hashtags. The study found that overuse of hashtags turns off would-be followers.

For the study, researchers tracked 507 Twitter users and their follower counts for 15 months.

I can remember Nov. 4, 2008 like it was yesterday. It was my first time getting to vote in a presidential election, and with a fly black guy from the Chi (me too!) running, I was all in and excited. Our first black president? The idea was too monumental for me to grasp before it happened, but all I knew months leading into the election, was that I liked the sound of it! We got up very early (Seriously, it was still dark outside), stood outside in the longest line, and finally got to vote. We even walked out with one of those colorful stickers with the American flag that said, “I voted!” All I had to do now was wait and hope that my vote would actually count. Of course, that evening, we found out that Barack Obama, a former state senator for Illinois and a Leo (whoop, whoop!), would be the 44th President of the United States, and our first black president. Folks were running around my apartment complex in tears, and video from around the world, and even in Kenya, showed that the same elation was being felt all over.

Well, not by everybody.

That night, I noticed that some people I had classes with, shared laughs with and worked with were trying to be party poopers on Facebook and Twitter, and couldn’t take John McCain’s loss gracefully. They continued throughout the night to bulls**t about how they were packing up and moving to Canada, and to this day, none of them did so, of course. People spoke as if it would be the end of the world as we knew it, with President Obama bringing the downfall of the U.S. and “Change” not happening. As a comeback, some friends of mine, and associates as well, were going on social media and telling folks “DON’T HATE!” and all that jazz. While tensions were high for the rest of the week, especially through social media and in classes with very few people of color, people got over their issues, and President Obama took office.

Almost four years later, it’s an election year again, and I’m already tired of folks. For one, I’m tired of the TV at my job staying on cable news channels where I have to hear the ramblings of Mitt Romney (especially since he doesn’t take a firm stance on anything), but I’m also tired of people making me want to delete them from my lives both through social media and in real life for their antics and very LOUD opinions. A young man who I actually became really cool with in college has gone on weekly rants and even had a profile picture that was an illustration of President Obama sucking the blood out of Lady Liberty’s neck. On any given day, you can find him posting stuff like this:

As President of the United States, Barack Obama’s administration has:

- Degraded the U.S. Constitution
– Weakened America’s defenses with senseless defense cuts
– Encouraged our enemies with weak foreign policy (Iran)
– Irritated our closest allies (Israel)

- Moved us increasingly towards a Socialistic ideology
- Increased entitlement and welfare spending – Drastically increased our budget deficit and National Debt
– Weakened our economy
– Had an unemployment rate of 8%
- Trivialized the war on terror
- Ultimately FAILED to meet any of his promises I cannot understand how anyone in this country can still support this guy.

NOVEMBER 6th WE TAKE OUR COUNTRY BACK!

More on Madame Noire!

• Did You Know They Dated (Part IV)? 14 Celeb Couples We Were VERY Surprised By
• Ask A Very Smart Brotha: How Do I Tell Him The Sex Is Wack?
• Bypass The Bitter: How To Get Over Your Relationship Gracefully
• True Story: I Dated A Man With Horribly Bad Breath And Lived To Write About It
• Lady Jaguars: 10 Famous Women Who Attended Spelman College
• “Baby Hair, Don’t Care”: Andrea Kelly Says If She Could Leave R Kelly, You Can Walk Away Too
• The Thirst Files: She Pulled A Disappearing Act, I Got Desperate

(Mashable) – His Majesty cannot be stopped, at least on Twitter. In just six hours, NBA superstar LeBron James’ Twitter account has surpassed 150,000 followers, outpacing the growth of other famous figures on Twitter, including Microsoft founder Bill Gates. This morning, New Orleans Hornets’ point guard Chris Paul tweeted that James had joined Twitter under the username @KingJames. Since then, James has been amassing followers, and there have been countless stories and tweets about the arrival of the NBA’s biggest star to the Twitterverse.

Read More…

(BlackWeb20.com) Instead of telling you the obvious people you should follow, celebrities and other notable people, we want to show you who you should REALLY be following on Twitter.  Check out 20 people on Twitter you should be following but probably aren’t:

Read More…