Thread by @TheSWPrincess

I've been part of the Twitter resistance for a year now. I'm going to share some thoughts about why & how I resist.

Some people may not like some things I say here. I’m sorry for that, but they need to be said. 1 #WhyIResist #HowIResist #RebelScum #TheResistance

Some things in the first year were fun: meeting like-minded people, the #scifi characters, learning how to take effective action. Celebrating #victories like beating the #ACA repeal bills.

A lot of it wasn't fun - the threats of nuclear war, the daily stress of bad news. 2

Follow parties were fun, and a good way to promote a message and raise awareness, connect with other resistors and grow our followings. They had themes and served a purpose and there was about about one a month.  3 #PartyWithAPurpose #trending #amplify #effective

Now I see follow threads daily. They aren't parties, they aren’t about amplifying a message or raising awareness of an issue - just lists of handles and "follow these people". Nothing about a topic or getting a hashtag to trend. Daily. 4 #popularitycontest

I understand that people want to grow their followings. But there seem to be many resistance accounts whose main focus is getting more followers. That seems to be what the majority of their tweets are about. 5 #fame #Twitterfamous #goals

I see people who are good at writing tweets that get a lot of rt's and likes. That's great! Except that seems to be their main goal. Not educating, not motivating, not calls to action - just likes, rts, and more followers. Who does that help? 6 #purpose #motive #StayOnTarget

High engagement levels on your tweets is great. But if the tweets aren't useful, what do they accomplish? If a tweet just makes fun of Trump, or says something like "Trump is a bigot", it may go viral, but what good does it do? Does it make a difference? 7 #purpose

I'm not saying all tweets should be serious. That would be boring and depressing. We need to engage people's interest, and humor is healthy & important for morale.

Your follower numbers should grow steadily. If they don't, it's a good idea to re-evaluate what you're doing. 8

If your main goal is to have more followers than others and be Twitter famous - that's not resisting. That's ego. We all like to feel popular and well liked, that's human. But that's not the purpose of the resistance. 9 #Sunday

What's the #focus of the majority of your tweets - education on issues, calls to action, motivation to take action? For resistance accounts, the majority (90 to 95%) of tweets should focus on those things. Humor and snark can be part of those tweets. So can anger. 10 #dosomething

So how do you grow your following without doing follow threads every day?  Write good, #original content. Create memes or graphics if you know how. Do some research on a relevant topic and write a thread. Include links to your source articles. 11

Go for #quality, not #quantity. One high quality, well-researched tweet or thread per day that educates, motivates, or has a call to action is more effective than 5 or 6 tweets that don't accomplish anything. Threads don’t need to be long – many of mine are 2 or 3 tweets. 12

Interact with larger accounts that write quality content. Join or create retweet rooms to amplify the quality content you write. The purpose of a retweet room is to help amplify each other, so rt good tweets from rt rooms. 13 #allaboutme #helpeachother

Your follower numbers aren't what will get people to take you seriously. Focus on quality content that educates, motivates and includes calls to action, that focus on what’s important and things that will make a difference – that is what gets people to take you seriously. 14

The 2018 midterm elections are hugely important. Focus on getting people registered to vote and supporting Dem candidates. @Kellieresists has a #voterregistration project and an #election project. DM her to get involved! 15 #GOTV

We need to be as EFFECTIVE as possible. It's OK to point out problems like #CHIP not being renewed. Get people angry! Then USE that anger to motivate them to call their MoCs! Don't waste an #opportunity to encourage people to do something that will #MakeADifference! 16

Saying "Fu€k Trump" accomplishes nothing. Take a moment to follow an angry tweet with a call to action. Link to a tweet from @TheLoyalO. They include talking points & a link to their Rep Finder.

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Make it as easy as possible for people who read your tweets to take action. That's our purpose here, right? I see accounts that just write snarky tweets that get several hundred rts, but do nothing to get people to take action. What a waste. #nosubstance #whatsthepoint 18

Imagine what a difference it would make if even half of those tweets included calls to action and a link to The Loyal O Rep Finder or democracy.io! How many more people would call/email their MoCs? How big of a difference could that make? 18 #imagine #possibilities 19

I'm not saying everyone should write novel-length threads, and certainly not every day. That's not everyone's thing, and not all topics need long threads. You can tweet an article, or quote tweet another tweet & add your thoughts and the link to 5calls.org. Simple.