By: Ashwini Thanabalan
If you are on twitter, you are bound to see tweets from a certain Xavier Lur.
But who is he? How does he always get heads up on all the events that are happening in Singapore? What is the reason behind his popularity? The Independent speaks to him and finds out.
The 23-year-old, who is set to start his university education at Singapore Management University, discloses that he is someone who lives and breathes social media. He has made it his hobby and work, that he spends a lot of time on it.
Creating content on Twitter does seem like second nature for Xavier Lur. He mentioned that when he first created a Twitter account in 2008, the main purpose of it was to promote a technology blog where he wrote about the latest technology news and gadgets. This blog has since been bought over.
It was about a year ago when he actively started using Twitter to promote events and new products in Singapore. When asked, “I choose events or products that are really relevant to the people, something that most Singaporeans would want to know about!”
Xavier finds out about events by keeping a close watch on events posted on Instagram and Facebook, as well as listings in the newspaper. There are times where he does get media invites, but this a small percentage in comparison to those that he sources on his own.
It was when he was covering these events that his tweets start to go viral and gradually so did his followers count. It now stands at almost 170,000 followers.
His wholesome personality also adds to his fame. Recently, he gave away his own-night stay at a glamping site (by GlampingCity) to a father who wanted to spend some quality time with his family.
A rather happy-go-lucky person, he hopes things will work out well for him and has gone through most of his life by “going with the flow”.
His passion for photography came about when he was studying Mass Communication in Ngee Ann Polytechnic. He further developed this passion as a freelancer for Ogilvy and Mather, when he was tasked to take photos for brands.
He strongly believes that he is not a social media influencer, and whatever content he is creating on Twitter is for the passion and to kill time. “What I do is more of a hobby thing, I don’t really make money out of it. It is out of passion and to tell Singaporeans what is happening in Singapore.”
He has no plans to take up sponsored posts as he deduces that it adds to his credibility as well as, gives him a unique edge over the rest.
When asked about what he felt about others who claim to be social media influencers, he is a neutral party. “It is kind of a job because people actually use their time and effort to create content and make it interesting.”
However, he declares that it is unethical to buy likes and followers as brands do look out for such things.
Albeit his love for creating content on Twitter and Instagram, Xavier Lur does not have any plans to make it his full-time job. Since young, he has been interested in the technology industry and hopes to focus on New Technology.
“In the future, I might not tweet that much, because I wouldn’t have much time due to school and my work.” As Xavier Lur steps into a new phase of his life, we would also have to wait for more captivating tweets from him.