First this was my first Twitter account. I've read tweets through RSS feeds; however it never really interested me to follow people. Most of what I read came from corporations. At first finding friends took a little bit of work as I tried doing it on my blackberry, but once I got on the laptop and then the iPad going with the accounts I was set
Soon after initiating my twitter account I linked it to a number of co-workers, and some organizations that I am either interested in or associated with. I also decided to follow some celebrities to see what they had to say, including Steve Martin and Rick Mercer.
Steve Martin has always been a favourite comedian of mine due to his sarcastic humour. He's currently touring playing banjo at a number of bluegrass festivals and concerts. His tweets were usually about thanking those at the previous show with a bit of a joke. What I noticed almost immediatly though that his tweets were usually written in a more traditional format. He'd include hash tags on trending items but does not frequently retweet.
I also follow Scott Stratten who owns a social media consulting company called Unmarketing and is a speaker and author of the book Unmarketing- Stop Marketing Start Engaging. He typically tweets about news occurring around social media and the use of technology but also throws in tweets about his daily life. He also tries to insert some humour. On average he's tweeting 2 to 3 times per day.
Trending Topics and news
Two trending topics came out. One was two weeks ago with the Bath Salts induced attack. Trending hash tags dealt with Bath Salts or variations of Zombie Apocalypse. Other topic searches were initiated by me. That being said, last night I was surprised at how I got the news about the shooting at the Eaton's Centre when #EatonsCentre became the top trending item. I turned on the television and watched it while live coverage from reporters outside of the centre occurred. What was pretty amazing was receiving tweets to this hashtag from reporters that were on TV 2 minutes before. That being said the some of the tweets also became somewhat distracted from the topic when Mayor Rob Ford made his way to the reporters to update them. Both #EatonsCentre and #Mayorford began to receive comments about such things as how annoyed the mayor will be with the food court closed. It really was an interesting way to experience the news, however I wonder how many people are digging deeper into the news and reading the stories behind it, or are the happy with the 140 character updates?
I also noticed the retweets that were just simply retweeted with no commentary. It seemed to be almost an automatic reflex.
I began to really notice how every online news source had a tweet button, which just encourages you to share the information, it has just become so easy. Prior to twitter if an online article interested you and you wanted to share it you would email the page link to yourself or someone else. Now if something interests you, you can share it with your network in two clicks.
I think Twitter is a great mobile app to relay events and news through a channel when immediacy is a key aspect. It is however micro blogging and I compare it to traditional media where radio would give you the basics of a story but TV or newspapers explored the why more thoroughly. I think Twitter can benefit online media and bloggers by instantly sending out notifications and updates on emerging content.
My final though on this from a personal perspective is on how addictive Twitter can be. I check it so much more than my Facebook account; however the time on Twitter is also much shorter, more of a glance. Overall I think my experiences have been positive, but one always needs to follow this simple rule "always think before you tweet".
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