As libertarians, it's critical that we speak up. We can't sell ideas, and change minds by remaining silent.
Liberty will not arrive by osmosis.
There are incredible communication tools available at our fingertips. This article is about using Twitter to reach the greatest number of people as possible.
Your first reaction may be: "But Chris, I have like 15 followers on Twitter. Sure, it's great at getting news instantly, and keeping up to date with just about anything, but who's going to listen to what I have to say?"
My answer to you is: "More people than you can imagine."
It makes no difference how many followers you have. You can have ZERO and still have an incredible reach. How? By replying to tweets from other people. Believe it or not, lots and lots of people read Twitter replies. It's not just the person that you're replying to.
How do I know that? Well, Twitter provides a free analytics page to every single user. If you have a Twitter account, you can go to yours by clicking: https://analytics.twitter.com When you get there, you'll see all of your tweets listed in chronological order, and analytics for every single one.
For example, here are 3 recent replies that I've made to other people's tweets. Next to each reply, you'll see two numbers. The first shows the number of people that saw my tweet, and the second is the number of people that engaged with it (by either retweeting, favoriting, or clicking on a link):
Obviously, out of those three tweets, the one in the middle had the biggest impact. Kennedy asked a question about the origins of money, so I responded and left a link to my book Set Money Free.
What took me about 5 seconds to write was viewed 4,014 times! This is not an unusual occurrence either. It's happened so many times, that I was finally inspired to write this article.
Just the fact that such a large number of people saw my response is gratifying enough. They surely would have never read what I wrote in a government schoolbook, or on Fox News. But then there are the few, the 31 who were intrigued enough to actually interact with what I said. Twitter gives the details on those engagements too. Here's the breakdown.
Again, what took me 5 seconds to type, turned into 15 people clicking on the Amazon link and visiting my books page. Hopefully some bought it! Two people also clicked on my Twitter profile....probably wondering who in the world says such things.
Now do you see why it doesn't matter how many followers you have? How hard would it be to physically round up thousands of people into a room to tell them something?
If you pay attention to your analytics page, you'll find out where it's worth your time to speak up and get into the conversation, and where its not.
The key is to go where the action is, and there is a lot of action on Twitter. Every journalist, economist, news outlet, and politician appears to be on Twitter. Give 'em a taste of Liberty.
Your simple reply might be the first coherent thought that thousands of people have come across in a long, long time....if ever. They may not agree with you, but they can't unread it either. They'll know that there actually are people who think outside the Woodsian 3x5 index card of allowable opinion.
So watch the numbers and toss those Liberty idea seeds out there by the bucketful. Many will dry up and wither away. But then there will be those few....and reaching those precious few will make all the difference in turning the tide against The State.
Chris Rossini is author of Set Money Free: What Every American Needs To Know About The Federal Reserve. Follow @chrisrossini on Twitter.
Love this post. Not only do you illustrate clearly how easy it is to publicize the message of liberty, but you demonstrate beautifully how effective Twitter is for blogging. Excellent work, Chris, as always. Thank you.
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