UPDATE: This page has been tweeted about by @RebelMouse https://twitter.com/TwitterMusic/status/444255140506116096 The Tweet above is a public service  announcement, related to, but not part of the article which follows. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________

What Twitter and Oreo Taught Me Last Weekend (Or How to Blog an Event at SXSW, Without being in SXSW)

https://twitter.com/ChrisZCorbin/status/442419773045866496/ At the start of SXSW in Austin, the news of the 3-D printed Oreo cookies to be produced on demand by a vending machine for the consumer who chooses its flavor and color based on popular Twitter hashtags blew my mind. So as not to flood @twitter_ph followers’ timelines with tweets that lead to the curation blog, I used one of my  personal accounts to tweet the queries necessary. But What tweets to curate and how to present that curation? The tools I used:

1. TweetDeck (Twitter-owned)
2. The Twitter #EatTheTweet Custom Time Line
3. RebelMouse  —  a social media app that’s very pliable for both text and mixed media content

The steps to writing  an #EatTheTweet curation blog

1. First, through TweetDeck,  I created a column that only streamed tweets that carry the hashtag  #eatthetweet, designated by Oreo and Twitter for this event.
2. From that column, I chose the tweets about the event. I focused on tweets that are accompanied by photos, vine or instagram video, or opinions about the cookie or event.
3. I moved those select tweets to the Custom Time Line with the title #EatTheTweet.

At this point, my understanding of the whole concept of #EatTheTweet is hazy at best. Even after having read articles on it, I still needed to ask clarifying questions to @Oreo and the SXSW participants themselves.  Thus the next step:

The questions I asked:

To the Twitter user in whose tweet I was interested: Did the vending machine give you hashtags or did you choose your own? What hashtag did you choose? How  did the cookie taste? Most of the participants were social-media savvy and were very responsive to my questions. Their direct responses helped crystallized my understanding of the event and the concept. I was disappointed that my clarifying questions to @Oreo, itself, were never answered. Perhaps, it was due to a deluge of queries from Twitter users,  But even as I eventually engaged in a poetic tweetconvo (twitter conversation) with Oreo and two other power users, Oreo engaged the power users, the power users engaged with me, but Oreo did not engage with me. https://twitter.com/su_layug2/status/442100291736178688

When I have gathered enough replies and have thanked the participants who answered my questions, I posted them on my RebelMouse page which I eventually posted on @twitter_ph.

Engagement on Twitter Vs. on RebelMouse

Did the followers of @twitter_ph like it?  One retweet and one favorite translate to “meh.” But that RebelMouse post, itself, has garnered over 700 engagements over the weekend, which is the most  any of my rebelmouse posts have gathered.

Also, @GrumpyCat, a celebrity account which had an actual cat represent it on SXSW, followed me because I mildy teased its claim to be the subject of the popular SXSW hashtag #GrumpyCat. That’s’ more than I can say about Oreo.

My take-aways:

1. Writing a blog purely from tweets is possible. 2.  A writer can get first-hand accounts and answers from Twitter users if you ask a crowd of socially-savvy folks about their opinions. And you can use those tweets much like you would use quotes in an article. 3. Sometimes the measure of the popularity and interestingness of one’s tweet is not in its retweets and likes, but hidden in another app where engagement is differently measured, in this case,  RebelMouse 

My unexpected outcomes:

Oreo disappoints, SXSW folks engage, and @GrumpyCat totally rocks! https://twitter.com/su_layug2/status/442087461393424384 #EatTheTweet Rebelmouse curation-blog