In my immediate circle of friends, I am one of the very few who uses Twitter regularly — if at all. I am all the time being asked how it works or why it would be any different from Facebook. I get where they are coming from. I used to feel the same way. I reluctantly joined Twitter in December 2010 in order to keep up with something that was going on in the photography industry at that time. I jumped head first into the world of tweets, hashtags and @replies, and have never looked back. It is all a little confusing at first (like any interactive site with which you are not familiar), but something happened last night that made me wish all my late-adopter friends would just jump on the bandwagon already! I could explain all the ins and outs of Twitter, but it might take forever :) Instead, just a little background for those who are not familiar…
- Twitter is a micro-blogging site that allows you to communicate within a 140 character limit. In the way that you update your status on Facebook, on Twitter you can “tweet” links to articles of interest, ask questions, update everyone on what you are currently doing or provide random observations in life (my personal favorite). There is a strict 140 character limit, so you can say goodbye to the paragraph-long ramblings from the girl that sat next to you in high school biology.
- On Twitter, you can follow only people who are of interest to you. Or they can follow you without the obligatory two-way friending that you have on Facebook. It is a little one-sided, but I think that is one of the greatest benefits. When you log in, you see a streaming chronological news feed of everyone you follow. No one gets lost in “mathematical algorithms” of what Twitter thinks you might be of interest to you (that is one of my biggest complaints against Facebook). Plus, there are tons of celebrities who tweet so celebrity stalking is fair game!
- Twitter is an ongoing conversation that you can join in on. When you reply to someone’s status on Twitter (more commonly referred to as an @reply), you are engaging them in a kind-of public text conversation. However, @replies do not show up in followers news feed unless the person follows both of you. If a group of friends follow each other, all @replies would show up in all news feeds. I have been pulled into many three- and four-way Twitter conversations that way, which is always interesting. (In this example, Katie, Brooke and I all follow each other. If you just followed me, or just followed Katie, you wouldn’t have seen this in your feed.)
- I think it was photographer Betsy King who called Twitter the stay-at-home/work-from-home equivalent of the office water cooler. That is SO true! I get practically all of my instant news from my Twitter feed and am able to get immediate feedback on topics of interest. When it was falsely reported and then later confirmed that Penn State football head coach Joe Paterno passed away recently, Twitter was blowing up with thoughts, new stories and tributes.
And that leads me back to my original point of why I love Twitter. Last night, as the Grammy’s played on TV, I was caught wild-eyed in a live stream of commentary about the awards show. Every few seconds someone that I follow was commenting on the beauty of Adele, one-lining reactions from the audience or pointing out the absurdity of Nicki Minaj. It was like I was watching the show with 300 of my friends. And it was awesome. Here is just a little snippet from my night on Twitter:
Even after I turned off the TV last night, I was still checking my Twitter feed on my phone to get the latest updates on winners and performances. I went to bed thinking what an amazing social platform Twitter has become. The instant feedback and conversation is unlike any other out there. This post is kind of random, but I wished last night that more of my “real life” friends had been on the action. This is my way of breaking it down and encouraging you to sign up. Afterall, awards season is only just beginning!
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by Amanda
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