Workshop to help support womens issues on social media

By Nawara Fattahova

KUWAIT: The Women's Cultural Social Society held a workshop on the 'role of digital media in supporting women's issues', presented by Ashwaq Al-Mudhaf, who gave advice and tips to women to deliver their message. She started with how to use social media tools to deliver messages on important issues.

"Social media tools are available free of charge. The woman has a message, but it's not reaching the target. This is because she uses social media in a wrong way, as she doesn't have enough knowledge. So today I am presenting this workshop to give them plans and tools of social media that will help them deliver their message," Mudhaf said.

"In the beginning I focus on letting them know what their message is, how to define it, make it clear, explain it, plan when to post or publish it, and where (on which channel). They should know how to measure their performance. We all know that today 'what is measurable is manageable'," she added.

The number of followers, whether on Twitter, Instagram, or any other app, is not very important. "What matters most is who or how many people retweeted or shared the post, which ensures that the message will reach the desired goal. If you have 10 followers, they can let your message reach 100 people. The number of followers is not a measure of the success of delivering the message. What matters is that my real followers passed the message. There is no sense of having 10,000 followers who are not active and do not forward my message, and most probably these are fake followers," explained Mudhaf.

"The user should always care about all her followers. She should respond to all their messages. If she is receiving many direct messages and is not able to respond to all of them, she can write in her bio on the top that she does not reply to DMs. You should respond to your attackers or critics, but be careful, as anything posted on the Internet will stay there forever, and you will be responsible for it," she pointed out.

"If you have a message that you want to deliver, your account should be 'business' or at least public to show your messages. If you have bought fake followers, it will show in the likes and comments. On Twitter, you should always 'like' your message, and on Instagram, always pin your message in both the Feed and Highlights," she explained.

The time of posting the message also matters. "If you want to deliver your message, you should post it after 6:00 pm. In our community, people are not morning persons. The peak is between 6:00 pm to 9:00 pm. Friday is a dead day for Instagram, so don't post on Fridays," Mudhaf said. To deliver a message, there should be specific goals. "Mention even the small details. The more specific the details, the more realistic the goal. Any goal without a plan is a dream," she said.

Energy is a must to realize all of this. "Quality sleep, proper food and exercise all are important. Sleeping well will provide 50 percent of the energy. Proper nutrition will help realize your plan, and people should drink enough water," concluded Mudhaf.