Twitter is like no other form of social media. What makes it unique is that it falls under the category of microblogging due to its character restrictions. This forces users to be strategic about what they post and how they say it. Along with being strategic, Twitter is a quick form of socialization that happens between close friends and strangers. Not only socalization, but advertising is prominent on Twitter. Everyday organizations tweet in order to stay relevant and communicate with the publics. On top of this opinion leaders post about products/organizations and create more interaction among the publics. Small businesses thrive on social media platforms like Twitter, where they have the ability to share their products/beliefs for free. For advertising purposes retweets are everything because they allow posts to reach a whole other audience of followers.
The Boston Marathon article talked about how Twitter is useful because it has this immediacy to it that allows for information about tragic events, such as the bombing at the Boston Marathon, to circulate quickly. Its downfall is the inaccuracy of information. The article compared journalism to a funnel, starting with a large pool of information and slowly weeding out inaccuracies and rumors until it has no errors and is ready to present to the public, in its most accurate form. They went on to say that Twitter is almost the opposite, the funnel is flipped upside down and a vast amount of inaccurate information is being shared. In situations like this Twitter isn’t used for socialization, rather it is primarily used to make the people aware of what is going on. After awareness is made, Twitter shouldn’t be used to further educate on the matter, this will just create misconceptions as the article suggested.
The saying everyone is a journalist applies to Twitter. Whether someone is listening or not Twitter serves as an outlet for voices. Since Twitter is a quick paced environment, posts can circulate and get big quickly. The fact that almost everyone carries around a phone with a video camera makes them journalists in a sense. There are countless situations where incidents/the aftermath of incidents were recorded and posted on Twitter, then quickly circulated to the public. True journalism gets lost in a way due to vast amounts of posts and videos on important topics, making it hard to weed through the information. All in all Twitter is an outlet that gives users the power to express themselves/their worldly views in a journalistic matter. In this day and age social media isn’t just about socializing, it's about connecting with key publics, reporting, and sharing beliefs, most of the time political. Getting political on Twitter is not the most fun, but many people do it. Younger people especially take advantage of politics on Twitter because most don’t watch the news or make a solid effort to educate themselves on what is going on in the world from a political standpoint. So the fact that political figures post everyday makes it easier for younger people to stay in the loop. Contradicting views can easily cause Twitter fights, but that necessarily isn’t a bad thing. Twitter gets the people talking, and anyform of talking/argument is good. People need to be aware about what’s going on in our world politically and they need to talk about it. Twitter makes it easy for people to have conversations about important matters and that's the beauty of it.
Just recently Twitter was used as a way to encourage the public to register to vote, and vote in the midterm election. Politicians, organizations, celebrities, and peers were all tweeting about how important it is to vote in the midterms. Not only were they posting links to register online, but some people were getting clever with it. People would tweet something along the lines of “OMG I can’t believe what happened to Ariana Grande!” with a link attached but the link was actually to the voting registration site. The constant conversation about registering and going out to vote had an impact on the younger crowd. Mac Miller's death has been sworming social media since late September. Many people found out through Twitter about the rappers death, as tweets were rushing in. It wasn’t until two days ago that the official cause of his death was released, a mixture of alcohol, cocaine and fentanyl were found in his body. It was deemed an accidental overdose, it was a mixture of all three of these substances that killed him, not an overdose of just one. Since this news was released many people are talking about how people need to stop doing coke. Coke laced with fentanyl is lethal and if it can happen to Mac it can happen to anyone. The Twitter world is buzzing about this tragedy and is now trying to communicate with everyone the dangers that coke can bring. About a week ago a synagogue was attacked by a mentally unstable man who professed anti-semitic sentiments. Local Pittsburgh police department and government officials were communicating with their residents via Twitter. Residents were able to contact their friends and family and keep them updated through Twitter.
Electric Forest, Jon Taffer, and Seaworld were the three accounts chosen for the Twitter project. Electric Forest is a festival that has been around since 2008 and has had major success. This festival has the ability to open minds after attending and being exposed to/experiencing what it has to offer. The festival grounds are beautiful and the experiences of the attendees are important to the festivals success, thus why it seemed fitting to follow them and tweet about it. Jon Taffer created the extremely popular and successful show Bar Rescue. For anyone working in the restaurant/bar business watching the show and learning from Jon Taffer is key. Being able to praise him and his expertise and ask him questions were the driving forces to following him. Many famous people come to mind when thinking about who to never follow, but no one that was worth tweeting at. Seaworld seemed perfect because most people do not support their company, and are passionate about nature and animals. Although Seaworld would never be followed for real, there was excitement thinking about tweeting at them in opposition. These three companies/people are all very different but things that instil passion.
At first Twitter seemed way easier than blogging, but they are both equally as hard. Having so much to say about the companies and people made tweeting hard. Despite being an everyday Twitter user, having to cut back thoughts and cleverly word things was tough compared to blog posts where there is freedom to shape thoughts with practically no restrictions. With Twitter a point has to be made then if a visual or link is added it is to back up that point. This is different from Instagram where the visual is the point being communicated then the caption backs it up. Also the caption doesn’t have character restrictions like Twitter, so a picture with a lengthy description is common. Facebook is famous for monologs, people tend to post multiple paragraphs preaching about their day or their beliefs. Seeing a post of such length causes friends/followers to avoid reading it, or they just skim. Twitter is the most efficient due to its quick and thoughtfully worded atmosphere.
The Twitter project was fun but challenging. Tweeting objectively at organizations and classmates was tricky. On the other hand, tweeting about things that instil passion and sharing that with classmates in a form that everyone is familiar with made it more lively. That familiarity made it easier/more fun to actually read classmates tweets and respond.
