Twitter is a platform that gives anybody the chance to share
their thoughts and ideas with an audience. I have been using this service for
about 5 years and in that time, I have seen Twitter grow and evolve into one of
the most used social media services in the world.
Users are given the opportunity to express themselves in 280
characters or less. Increased from the 140-character limit in November of 2017,
it forces users to come up with concise and creative ways to get their point(s)
across and I believe this is part of the growing appeal of this platform. As
you tweet (post on your page), you attract people to your profile and gain
followers. When you first create your Twitter profile, followers are often
people you know in real life, however, as your profile grows, many of your
followers will be people from anywhere in the world that enjoy the content you
post on your page. You are also given the option to follow other Twitter
accounts. This will aid in building your timeline:
a section of Twitter where the posts of those you follow (and even those you do
not follow) congregate for easy viewing.
Your followers can support your posts with a like or retweet to share your tweets with their followers. You can do the same
with miscellaneous tweets you see. Adding hashtags to your posts add your tweet
to an umbrella and in this way, you allow other users to find your tweet and
tweets that follow the same topic. For example, posting a picture of your dog
and adding the phrase “#dog” to your
post will allow other users to find your post and other posts like it when they
search that phrase.
Personally, I hold a decent opinion of Twitter. It gives
everyone a platform to express their thoughts and feelings on any topic,
whether that be politics, current events or debate which fast food joint has
the French fries. Twitter is a new form of blogging and does carry certain
advantages over traditional blogging. These advantages include simplicity, real-time
feed/interaction, and the ability to reach a wide audience. Some disadvantages
include the 280-character limit that may force users to dilute their ideas and
spam/fake accounts which are easily made and used.
Since Twitter has many active users and operates in
real-time, information spreads very quickly. Unfortunately, since this is true,
misinformation spreads just as quickly. For example, earlier this year in May,
a story was spread on Twitter which claimed that the New York Stock Exchange
was being flooded. This was later proved to be false. This is an issue because
before the truth can be told, many users have already seen the story and taken
it to be true. Twitter makes it very easy to spread rumours which can easily
damage the reputation of individuals, groups or businesses.
In conclusion, Twitter is an excellent platform to put forth
your ideas to those that want to hear them and serves as a great way for
businesses to appeal to large audiences instantly without the need to appeal to
gatekeeper groups such as television networks and radio stations to acquire
advertising rights with large sums of money. If you do not have a Twitter
account, I would recommend making one. Everyone is always up for a good
conversation!
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