The Twitterverse: A Five Part Question & Answer Breakdown

Question One: How has Twitter been used beyond socializing, and for marketing?

Twitter has been used for just about everything. Going beyond the realm of just socializing with those in the world around you; Twitter is also used as quite the marketing tool by advertisers and organizations alike. There have been ads placed on Twitter from everything from the new Mr. Clean ad, to political party’s agenda, to an event called Hennypalooza. Yes, an event featuring everyone’s favorite brown liquor. 

One way in particular that Twitter has become a marketing tool is by the insertion of sponsored posts from brands. Studies have shown fewer and fewer people are actually watching less television and spending more time on social media platforms—Twitter included. With the advent of things like TiVo, DVR, Netflix, and the multitude of other on-demand, commercial-free streaming services, the chances of a consumer seeing a commercial is getting smaller. Advertisers had had to adapt to new trends in media consumption. In addition to working in shots of a product into a scene via product placement and working in a product into the dialogue or storyline of a television show or movie via product integration, sponsored posts on social media outlets allowed advertisers more of a guarantee that the eyes of their targets would be on their products.

Question Two: In what ways can Twitter be used as a journalistic, political, and organizational tool?

It has been said that Twitter is the world’s largest microblogging website. With the aforementioned statement being knowledge to just about everyone that wants to say anything is on Twitter. Some users of Twitter—Tweeters for short—have put together entire threads of tweets that include investigative stories not covered by mainstream media, premises for movies, captivating life events that may or may not be real (hello Zola Story), and even spreading awareness to a cause or political ideologies.

It has often been seen that reputable sites will take the tweets of users and freelance journalists to embed them in articles. Buzzfeed is notorious for this, by the way. Name a major event in news or popular culture that got a mass of tweets, Buzzfeed has taken the most engaging ones and made it a click-bait article for their site.
As a political tool? Well, let’s look at the current state of America for that one. Does 45 not tweet his trite and “policies” every single day?
As an organizational tool? Twitter can bring awareness to a cause and that awareness can make people want to take action. More on that will be elaborated later on in this question and answer post.

Question Three: Name and elaborate on three events where Twitter was used as a communicator of these events. Was the use of Twitter successful or was it considered a failure in these scenarios?

Three events in which Twitter was used as a communicator for these events were the flooding that took place in Houston, Texas, the Revolution in Egypt, and the terrorist attacks that happened in Paris, France. The use of Twitter in these events did have a successful outcome.

Flood in Houston, Texas

During the major flood in Houston. Texas, people used Twitter as a means to communicate that they were in need of emergency rescue services. Why were people using Twitter as opposed to 911? Well, 911 was so inundated with calls that it wasn’t much help to everyone that needed it. People turned to Twitter to send out Tweets that included the number of people in the residence, the water level inside the home if any children or elderly person were in the home, and of course where their home is located. In response to these Tweets, other people located or residing in safer parts of Houston, which had access to boats and supplies created their own rescue efforts that otherwise would not have been saved by state/government recognized rescue efforts.

Terror Attacks in Paris, France

One year before the most recent terrorist attacks in Paris, France, French government proposed new legislation to prevent hate-speech from being spread across social media by ISIL supporters. Those supporters were utilizing social media platforms to organize such attacks. Sometime after the proposals of this legislature and others, Twitter once again became a place where people would look to receive help. An important hashtag that was used to search for missing loved ones that were last seen near sites that were attacked was #rechercheParis. Paris residents also used the hashtag #porteouverte. This hashtag was used to bring awareness to people that were stranded in the city that there is a safe, sheltered place they could go.

Egyptian Revolution

For almost three decades, Egyptian citizens were under the rule of Hosni Mubarak. Mubarak is cited and heavily criticized by human rights groups for issues with political censorship, police brutality, torture, and restricting the freedoms of speech and assembly. Egyptian citizens used Twitter to rally support abroad to the removal of Mubarak. Soon after he was overthrown.

Question Four: What topics/subjects did I choose to follow on Twitter and Why?

As part of the Twitter project that was assigned to COM 336, students were tasked with creating a Twitter account, tweeting 10 tweets about one particular topic, and follow three accounts aside from fellow classmates. My topic of choice for this assignment was nail art & nail polish. I choose this specific topic because it is a topic I have seven years of experience with as a nail artist and blogger of the last seven years. Remember my post about making coursework you have no interest in interesting? Yeah. This is that. 

As far as the subjects I chose to follow, I decided on Pear Nova, Polished Girlz, and Peta. (The alliteration of those three choices was only apparent to me just now.) The first two accounts I actually follow from my real Twitter account because they pertain to my interests; one being a nail polish brand and the other being a nonprofit that spreads joy to sick girls by providing a day of pampering in form of a manicure. So many feels, right? The last account I followed was to fill the requirement of an account that I would never actually follow in real life. For that I chose Peta because I have no problems with animal testing, I eat meat because it tastes good, I wear fur because I like it and it keeps me warm. Do I hate animals? No. DO I care enough to ascribe more humanity to animals than people? Again. No. I won’t ever be caught protesting the rights of animals when Black and Brown people are not even given actual personhood.

Question Five: How Has his Experience Using Twitter Differentiated From Blogging? From any social media?

Different outlets require different approaches. One major difference between blogging and other social media platforms as it related to Twitter is the character limit. With a blog, one can literally type as much about a subject as they want—or at least as much as they think one’s audience would want to read. And while there are character limits for Facebook posts, the count for that is pretty high. 63,206 to be exact. To put that into perspective. Read this current blog post about 60 times.

And that is it. That was five questions and five answers on the Twitterverse.