Deets on Tweets

Twitter has made great waves as a social media platform, a public service announcement forum, and marketing channel. While its creation was to provide a social network, it has been very effective in providing value beyond that. As the third largest social media, Twitter has great reach and power to connect people all around the world.

Twitter has proven its worth more than once in the past 13 years since it was made in 2006. When Houston residents sought help from hurricane Harvey, and Egyptian citizens live tweeted details of an ongoing revolution, Twitter was there as a news outline and hotline. Despite the fact that there are other potential sources that could be used to put out information, Twitter’s micro-blogging format forces people to put out concise pieces of information. This means the message is easily digestible and very shareable. While this gives a perfect opportunity for organizations to market themselves, events like these show that the platform has potential beyond a networking site.

Twitter can be used in a multitude of ways. It has opportunities as a journalistic, political, and organizational tool, where you can alert the public of ongoing events and happenings. Using hashtags provides a way to put all of these micro-blogs all in one place. In events where the general public is experiencing something together, you can read peoples first responses and reactions easily and quickly. The only problem with this is that there is no real way to filter out any tweets that might be exaggerated or straight up false. We have seen this first-hand in the Boston Marathon Bombings, where some of the tweets that journalists were publishing on bigger news platforms turned out to be falsified. This is not to discount the opportunity that is there on the other side of the story, but fact checking tweets of the journalistic variety is necessary to assure we are educating ourselves and not consuming false information. As a political tool, officials are able to better interact with their following and have a closer relationship with their publics. Sometimes too close even, in the many instances where President Trump publicizes his rants and general discontent. The same is true with organizations and businesses. A greater sense of community is available on twitter, where brands can quickly interact with their customers in 140 characters or less. 

The potential reach Twitter has, whether through a journalistic perspective, a political perspective, or an organizational perspective- is undeniable. Here are three times Twitter has proved its worth in the last year.

1.    1. Popeyes

Popeyes release of their chicken sandwich wasn’t just received well- it resulted in selling out just days after releasing. All this hype over a chicken sandwich proved just how valuable word of mouth marketing on Twitter could be. The feud that commenced across various fast-food chains had everyone trying out Popeyes just so they could see what the hype was all about.

2.#MeToo

This hashtag, aimed to expose and discuss sexual harassment, has been used over 19 million times on Twitter alone. Its clear this really sparked an important conversation since it went viral at the end of 2018. 

3. Greta Thunberg

This 16-year-old climate change activist Greta Thunberg gained major attention from public officials and celebrities alike when a video of her advocating environmental awareness went viral on Twitter in October. She received responses from President Trump, Kim Kardashian, and millions of others. As a result, she gained over 7 million followers and even more reach with her inspiring message. 

For this Twitter project, I chose to follow Barack Obama, Rihanna and The NFL’s accounts. While I love Barack Obama and Rihanna and follow them on my personal twitter, I have not once thought about following the NFL. I know nothing about football and wouldn’t want their tweets distracting me from the memes. Rihanna and Obama have great twitter followings and oniline presence, so I was excited to have to reply to them on their accounts. While it was more difficult than expected to say what I wanted to say in the character limit, less is sometimes more. Twitter is such a weird place where politicians, celebrates and normal people can have a conversation and exchange information. It really did change the way that we receive news and information. In this day and age, no one seems to have the attention span or the time to read more than 140 characters. While writing blog posts has its time and place, writing out thoughtful tweets has more opportunity in my opinion. Twitter has been around a long time, and it doesn’t seem to be going anywhere anytime soon.