The Twitter Times

          In the age of social media, Twitter is certainly one of the most popular social media sites in 2018. Twitter has been around since 2006 and has impacted the day to day life of humans greatly. There are over 300 million people using Twitter worldwide. Twitter is a great place to connect and communicate with friends and also can be used as a source for news and entertainment. With the always evolving world of social media, Twitter has been able to become a mainstay for the past ten years.

            Twitter is a very versatile tool that can be used by people. It is much more than just a basic social media site. Twitter is a great promotion outlet for a company or a person as well. Twitter does go beyond the basics of socializing and marketing, however. Twitter can be a source to communicate details of a disaster such as the Boston Marathon Bombing in 2013. In a time when the speed of news stories and details is so vital, Twitter can provide the speed for news being released that people want. Details of this horrific event were spread very quickly after it happened because of Twitter. Now there is another side to this as Simon Ricketts discusses how Twitter’s information on a disaster is good at first then switches to complete rumor and innuendo after that. Ricketts states, “This is not to condemn Twitter. Just to contextualize it. I see so much good on Twitter, so many positive stories and actions, that I would never write it off. I just sense an evolution. A reframing. An acknowledgment that, as it grows, it has become more unwieldy.”   

Twitter can be extremely helpful for breaking news, but people must carefully read all tweets regarding that news. Another way Twitter has grown beyond socializing and marketing is that it helps people view the world differently. Paul Gill notes “Among other things, Twitter is a way to learn about the world through another person's eyes.”

People can learn about other countries cultures because of how many different people join and use Twitter. Twitter can be used as a place for people to better educate themselves about different cultures.

Twitter can be very useful for journalists and political leaders. Since there are so many people using Twitter, it is an easy place to promote your work in the case of a journalist or promote your campaign message in the case of a political leader. Twitter is such a central place with a huge audience, and it is simple to find your target audience through following certain accounts and using precise hashtags. Twitter can also be useful for a journalist because they can live tweet an event. For example, if a journalist is covering the Buffalo Bills, they can live tweet from the game giving updates, and insight that people would not be able to see on the TV broadcast. Live tweeting is great for journalists because they can pass on information to their audience instantly. For political leaders, the President of the United States Donald Trump uses Twitter heavily. Twitter is a great way to communicate with a large number of people and release information to the public. Organizations can also use Twitter to interact with customers and market their business. Organizations can alert their followers when there are new items being released, or there is a sale going on. Twitter also offers a chance for organizations to gage the interest that their customers have on certain products or services. 

            A recent event that Twitter was used as a communicator for was when the Buffalo Bills fans began donating to Andy Dalton’s charity after he helped clinch a playoff spot for the Bills in January 2018. Shortly after Andy Dalton threw the game-winning touchdown pass against the Baltimore Ravens, donations of $17.00 begin to roll into Dalton’s charity foundation. The word among Bills fans was spread on Twitter for this to support Dalton’s charity. Over $350,000 was donated in total from Bills fans everywhere, and it started spreading through Twitter. This was obviously a successful example of Twitter as a communicator. Earlier this month tragedy struck when a deadly shooting took place at YouTube’s headquarters in California. As usual, people looked to Twitter to receive updates on the event. Vadim Lavrusik who is a project manager at YouTube had his account hacked during the shooting. The hacker posted a tweet reading “please help me find my friend I lost him in the shooting.” This was a fake tweet and caused a lot of chaos on Twitter regarding the shooting at YouTube headquarters, and people did not know what to believe. This is an example of the negative effect of Twitter can have during an event. The NHL trade deadline took place at the end of February. Twitter is always a huge tool that is used to report trades and rumors for all sports trade deadlines. This could be an example of both success and failure to communicate an event. First, the success part, NHL team accounts, and many analysts correctly reported trades and what player was going where so the fans were informed on the news. The failure is when fake twitter accounts of NHL reports tweet false trades and fans think they are the actual reports account. This is a frequent problem during the NHL trade deadline every year with fake accounts tweeting false information.           

            The main topic picked to follow on Twitter was the NHL playoff race. As a big fan of hockey, this was an easy topic to pay attention to and tweet about. Also, the playoff race was a very timely topic. The two accounts followed that were related to this were the official NHL Twitter account and hockey insider and analyst Darren Dreger. The NHL’s twitter was followed because it tweets each final score and gives updates on league standings. Darren Dreger’s Twitter was followed because he gives his opinion on teams and offers a deeper thought than the NHL Twitter does. Both accounts are directly related to the topic. The other account that was followed was CNN Politics. This account was followed because it is not of personal interest and is not related to the main topic at all. Politics is always at the center of attention in today’s society, and it may be beneficial to begin paying attention to it. The CNN Politics account was followed to expand knowledge in a different and new topic.

            Twitter is different from blogging because it is in a shorter form. Tweeting forces a person to condense their statement to 280 characters or less. Only having 280 characters means that the tweet has to be simple yet effective. Simply put, Twitter is a form of microblogging. Twitter makes people ideas shorter but still offers a platform to discuss and shape ideas. Twitter is different from other social media because of how simple and fast it is to use. It is not picture based like Instagram, and people can easily tweet to their audience. Twitter provides a chance to communicate with people all over the world. With only having 280 characters, Twitter is fast paced, and people can spread information and thoughts quickly. Twitter is also great for marketing and connecting with people. Twitter continues to grow and will only get better in the future.