Tweeting™

Microblogging.

The method of social media where various points of information can be condensed into only a few-hundred characters, maybe even less. Microblogging is often used to speak to an audience on personal life, political life, professional life, and so on. Platforms such as Twitter and Facebook often capitalize on this method as both are often checked throughout everyone’s daily life. In addition, the use of hashtags (#) can often help bring microposts to a bigger audience.

Twitter is used by users and companies alike. They will use the platform to socialize with others, and market with others. For a company standpoint, these companies will use social media as a base of marketing, and social interaction with consumers. In addition to product marketing, companies will find their target audience and cater to that target to create relatable posts for users to see.  Beyond socializing and marketing, Twitter is a platform to catch the latest trends and the people posting on those trends, as well as a platform to read daily news around the world. Which leads us to the political side…

Twitter is used as a political platform, especially among users, to debate on the status of the world. One example of this are the infamous tweets of President Donald Trump, leading to many users retweeting and commenting on those microblogs (often in a negative perception). Contrastly, this same group of people will speak positive praise towards a candidate such as Bernie Sanders, due to a shared alignment of beliefs. In that sense, there is a strong “political scene” on Twitter, as users are often outraged at the state of government. In the journalism world, various news sites and journalists will often use Twitter to promote and refer users to read these articles, in addition to microposting their news. Journalism in Twitter is also easy to interact with, as it can be used as a platform to reply directly to journalists on their work, and other miscellaneous information. Another point to note; how is Twitter used as an organizational tool? This goes back to the marketing and target audience perspective – as another platform to engage with customers. Twitter as an organizational tool is both a method for companies to interact and market with consumers, as well as keeping up with relevant information.

Twitter is known to be a communicator of events that happen around the world. When it comes to politics, public figures, pop-culture, local news, and so on, Twitter is used as an epicenter to gather information on such. These can be often found in the “trends for you” section, or by clicking the “explore” option. Without getting into far enough detail as it is a commonly stated topic, the untimely death of NBA legend Kobe Bryant comes to mind, and the articles and trending tweets come to mind leaving a saddened afterthought especially those close to him. Another example in recent history is the release of Animal Crossing: New Horizons for the Nintendo Switch. Why a video game as an example? While being a hyped release towards fans and casual gamers alike, the release of the game brought closure and comfort towards people around the world, especially during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic where people are instructed to stay home. The game brings a social aspect to interact with others, in a time of quarantine and isolation from others in real life. The impact? Nintendo Switch consoles are sold out at every retailer and humans get to partake in social interaction while remaining isolated. Continuing the coronavirus subject, various events such as E3 and Coachella are being either delayed or cancelled due to the pandemic, leaving these companies at a loss for money. However, some of these event companies are looking for ways to make up these cancelled events with online streams and what not.

Choosing to Tweet with the topic of pop-culture (anime, video games, what not) was something placed in mind because what the importance of it is to entertain and keep spirits up despite the coronavirus pandemic. This promotes a sense of “don’t say there is nothing to do” while quarantined at home. It promotes a sense of digital activity, as well as the events that are going on in these industries. Explaining was also important as to make sure everyone who followed understood at a somewhat-basic level. This experience is different from blogging/other forms of social media because there is a lot of information displayed, yet the message needs to be relayed under 200 characters.