It is safe to say that with the
creation of Twitter a few years ago, it changed how all of us receive our news
and how we communicate information around the world. Twitter built around the craze of Facebook
and Myspace, became something completely different then just a social media
site. It promoted short messages and
easy access to people of interest. It is
easy to see how Twitter has influenced social media, marketing as well as
journalism and we can see this over several major events this year.
Twitters
creation evolved how social media would be used around the world. The effect of
celebrity interaction with Twitter can easily trace the origins of how Twitter
became more then just your run of the mill social media site. It expanded the marketing aspect as
celebrities interacted with their fans and help build their image and soon
became a site for news on them, as well as what else is going around the rest
of the world. Organizations and Political figures saw how the celebrity
interaction created such a quick and direct connection to its audience they
soon followed suit. News organizations then followed behind them. Hash tags allowed for people to connect and
connect their tweets together and make the followers audience feel like they
have a voice. It allowed reporters the ability to break news faster than
waiting for the next news segment to begin.
With 140
character messages Twitter focuses on the quick and to the point messages. This
concept allows for journalism professionals great resource to informing the
public with up to date news with in seconds of it happening. News outlets can also easily follow other
news resources around the world allowing them the ability to break news from
first hand accounts. An example of this, is earlier this year when Paris,
France was unfortunately attacked by terrorists. News outlets quickly informed
the masses of up to the minute news on what was going on and informing people
to stay away of certain unsafe areas of Paris. It also allowed for people
around the world to send their prayers and thoughts to the people in Paris by
people hash tagging messages with #PrayersforParis.
Organizations
and Politics are also using Twitter as a major tool to push their agendas.
Organizations and Companies use the site to connect people with the same ideals
and desires. They can help spread information and news of similar organizations
and better network their organization. In the last two presidential elections
we can see how social media, specifically Twitter, can help get you ideas out
to the publics. This year alone presidential candidate, Bernie Sanders, led a
small grass root campaign that started as a long shot. His campaign team put a
lot of time and effort into spreading his policies and ideas through the use of
Facebook and Twitter. Mr. Sanders who in the beginning of the election was a
basic unknown and had about 20% of the votes has now risen to challenge
presidential front-runner Hilary Clinton.
Twitter has
its fair share of controversy that comes with a free flow of information. This
year, Kim Kardashian, a famous reality TV star came under fire for posting a
picture of herself naked on Twitter. Kardashian famous for posting very risky
photos on the internet, and who originally became famous for a sex tape with
another celebrity came under fire. While
fans supported her. Other prominent actresses and famous people attacked her
for using nudity to receive attention. Actresses spoke up telling her to use
her influence to promote women to use their mind not their bodies to draw
attention. They wanted her to help with the body image issue that plagues women
in our society instead of adding to the issue.
Like many
other social media sites, Twitters ability to allow you to follow a wide range
of topics and people make for a great dynamic. It allows you to learn about
topics you may have only heard of and want to better inform yourself with relative
ease and in a fast amount of time. For
example, you may have heard of Sierra Club in passing somewhere and not known
what is about. You can follow them and learn how they are an environmental
advocacy organization and they post about what is going around the world
involving the environment. This process can take you all of a minute to figure
out. You can end up following Sierra
Club, then next follow the NFL. Twitter allows us to connect our passions that
previously have never had the same sounding board and lets us easily navigate
our interests.
Twitter is
a global network connecting people all over the world, it allows us as
Americans a way to connect with news going around all across the country. The
most influential aspect of Twitter is its local presence. For example,
Canalside Buffalo, which is an area in Buffalo, NY, has its own Twitter
account. This organizations informs the community of events that are being held
there and ways their followers can become involved with the area. Locally, you can see how the effects of
Twitter usage at work on a smaller scale.
Twitter
took the creation of blogging and evolved it into a more elaborate method of
communication. It centralized the blogosphere and instead of long posts to
read, it make things simple and quick excerpts. That allowed people to get the
message to the receiver in a quickly less diluted way. As blogging was to news information and
topics, and social media sites were to connecting people to each other. Twitter
broke the mold and combined the two outlets and created something more efficient
and useful than anything previous.
Twitter
like any form of technology has evolved the way we communicate and look at
receiving information. With the following it has already surmounted it will be
interesting to see what the future has in store for it. We can all agree that
we will all play a big a part of that transformation.
