Screenshot from my own Twitter account
This blog post was written as part of a university project.
Before my News and Journalism assignment began, my Twitter usage had been limited mainly to my place of work to tweet my articles and promote the company. My boss encouraged me to get Twitter, but I just didn’t see much future use for it. I’d say that I’m more extroverted in real life than I am online; I mainly share images and memories to Facebook, and wondered how I’d fill even the short 140 character limit with my thoughts.
However, this assignment gave my poor neglected Twitter a purpose and I was able to rejuvenate my page with tweets about my blogs, my opinion on current affairs and everyday chatter. I found myself really enjoying the microblogging part of the assignment, and checking Twitter for things of interest became a regular occurrence in my day-to-day life. In turn, I strived to create blogs on WordPress and Storify posts that would display the elements of news and reporting that I was interested most in.
As my number of followers started to grow, I assume due to hashtags and mentions, my interactions with other users also became a fun part of Twitter. Posting polls and questions, and receiving retweets, votes and responses encouraged me further to actively engage on the site, leading to my tweets not only being dedicated to news and journalism alone, but also causing them to be directed at companies and people and as a platform from which I could express my own opinion.
Searching Twitter for organisations and individuals who I thought were of interest and worth a follow was an interesting experience – I learnt things about companies and people that I otherwise wouldn’t have known. For example, the way in which some celebrities use their accounts as a way of promoting charity work seemed like an exceptional and great use to me. Due to the unexpected enjoyment of completing my assignment, I will certainly remain on Twitter and stay active online as I feel it has not only been a learning curve but also a way of gaining insight and information that I otherwise might have missed, and staying connected with all the tech-savvy people out there.
worldbybeth 