A Look At… Twitter
By Elizabeth Reinhardt
Over the last five years, Social Media has exploded into the public consciousness. It has become a part of our daily lives. In celebration of this phenomenon, following Social Media Week, we are going to take a look at the social media channels that we all know and love – and the ones that are about to make a splash in the industry. This week, we’re taking a look at Twitter.
Twitter is a micro-blogging site founded in 2006. According to the About Twitter website, Twitter is “real-time information network that connects you to the latest stories, ideas, opinions and news about what you find interesting. Simply find the accounts you find most compelling and follow the conversations.”
An infographic published by Tweetsmarter in May 2012 reports that Twitter has 555 million users, making it the second most popular social network, following Facebook. It has rolled out two major updates in 2012, adding a header image to profiles (not unlike the Facebook cover photo) and sending out “people you may know emails.
Twitter is also making a movement into the advertising world. In the October 5 issue of Entertainment Weekly, the CW placed an advertisement that uses a small LCD screen to show live tweets from the CW twitter as well as recurring videos featuring the station’s fall lineup. This is a first-of-its-kind ad that will only be featured in roughly 1,000 issues of the magazine.
This growing social media network has been at the head of many major news stories since in the last five years. The real-time updates allow for conversations that can’t happen on outlets such as Facebook or YouTube. The first 2012 Presidential Debate was the most tweeted about political event in history, with 10.3 million tweets in just 90 minutes.
Commonly viewed as a news source, some police stations have even begun using the network as a way of sending information about occurring crimes. The Seattle PD, for instance, has begun using Twitter to update the community about what is going on in each of its beats. Officers are able to tweet about a case once the call has been taken care of. While there are positives and negatives to the effort (criminals are able to see the tweets as easily as anybody else) the movement allows for faster updates to the community at large.
Although commonly seen as a way for people to simply tell their friends what they’re doing every minute of the day, Twitter has evolved into a tool used not only for the mundane, but also used for intellectual communication and conversation. Since its conception in 2006, Twitter has grown to be the second most popular social media network online.
You can follow PACO on Twitter by looking for our handle, @sayhitopaco. November 6, we’ll take a look at Facebook!
