If we on Twitter indeed want to change Nigeria by exerting more influence *offline*, we should consider our inability to influence *offline* narratives "next door" on Facebook & WhatsApp as an indicator that we have to work on how we work. https://twitter.com/MsNemah/status/1320458401105793024

Politics is hard work. It isn't glamorous. And it drains your social battery.

It requires you taking part in conversations that test your patience. Constantly.

And for some people, it may mean having conversations that make you "switch gears".

Many people who are regular on Twitter but ignore Facebook say they do so because they can't stand the conversations there.

The conversations at offline grassroots level are more Facebook than Facebook.

Echo Chambers aren't simply ideological. Echo Chambers are also about "wavelengths" and an inability to "codeswitch". If you can't speak Facebook or tolerate it spoken to you, you probably can't speak grassroots for an extended period.

And that's OK, if you can find workarounds.

This is what the influence ecosystem looks like. FB & WhatsApp have the strongest influence on offline political narratives. While bants & inspirational talk trickles out of Twitter, socio-political narratives fare worse. Why?

We don't use the words they use. We don't communicate in the style they do. We don't discuss politics and social issues in the terms and framework through which they see them.

And on our part, we haven't trained our ears/eyes to accept that communication from them.

Before I got into politics, I had to learn my native language. But I ALSO had to learn the way my people saw the world. If a man is seeing the world from satellite view, you have to talk to him about forests, not trees.

And then gradually, you use forest terms to show him trees.

One cannot influence through condescension and without showing respect by taking the time to communicate in the way the people are ready to.