Monday, February 4, 2013

Twitter

I got a Twitter. This is the social network I resisted for the longest, and I finally crumbled. If you want me to follow you, put your Twitter handle in the comments, and if I follow you, return the favor?

Why was I resisting Twitter? Because I didn't understand it's use. I thought of it as a self centered status updater. I just didn't see the point of public text messages. However, I realized Twitter is more than that. It's a writer's artistic challenge. Summing up a thought in 140 characters or less takes talent. There are tons of "Twitter-sized gospel messages". There's a book of famous literature in tweet form (I really enjoyed that).

The Lizzie Bennett Diaries (#LBD) (one of my favorite web series of all time) first got me thinking about the use of social media to tell a story. This production team is dedicated - there's a YouTube account, Pinterest accounts, Tumblr accounts, Twitters, Facebook pages, and webpages for the companies (collinsncollins.com, pemberlydigital.com @pemberlydigital). The timeless Jane Austen classic, told in a new way...but it needed Twitter to be told that way.

One of my friends who recently graduated has to tweet for her job (@bcgc). People get entire jobs for keeping a company's social media presence alive. And if Facebook is the place for friends, Twitter is the place for corporations. So I got one to follow that kind of media.

The cybersecurity world is largely fueled by user knowledge and security. Social Networking is the perfect way to share quick cyber security tips, so Twitter is full of Tech tip writers (like @tekdefense) that publish short and quick protection tips.

So far, my transition to Twitter has been pretty easy. I didn't have an account before, but that doesn't mean I don't understand the concept of tweeting. I know about RT and # and @ tags and all that. I've already had a whole text message conversation with my old suite mate, totally publicly on Twitter. So, as a friend of mine put it, it looks like I'm gonna stick around.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

are we twitter buddies? I'm katiworonka :)

BlueLotusJoy said...

We are now! I'm @ScheererLotus