Twitter: A Game Changer

I have tried my very hardest to throw myself into the Twitter world, I even attempted the ‘5 tweets a day’ rule but to no success have I been transformed into a Twitter junkie. I understand how it works for some (or should I say millions of people) but to me, updating people I barely know with my thoughts and opinions on a regular basis just isn’t appealing. I must admit, I do enjoy trawling through my feed that’s filled with the words of celebrities, businesses I admire and professionals of my chosen career – it can be somewhat inspiring. I’m just more than happy to just skip the part where I hit ‘tweet.’

Twitter’s potential to influence the social, political and cultural landscapes of our society on a global scale is mind blowing. In a digital age, where we are constantly consuming information from an immense amount of different mediums, Twitter’s 140 character limit allows users to quickly take in what they need and glance over what they don’t. Twitter reflects what theorist Henry Jenkins calls the ‘technology of collective intelligence.’ (HCDMediagroup, 2009). It has the ability to provide information in real time which is an important contribution to the new ‘participatory culture’ of our society. (HCDMediagroup, 2009). Howard Rheingold, one of the leading commentators and theorists on cyberspace, has written widely on his views on virtual communities and the importance of collaboration. Rheingold explains that virtual communities are created when people interact with public discussions long enough with sufficient human feeling to form webs of personal relationships in cyberspace. (Rouse, 2006) Twitter fits perfectly with this theory as people ‘follow’ each other’s posts and build relationships based on interacting with each other in an online environment.

Twitter has become a necessary platform for organisations to communicate with stakeholders during a crisis. Allan Schoenberg, of CME Group says, ‘the real time aspect of Twitter is a game changer for PR.’ (Perez, 2011). It enables organisations to reach out to a large audience, at no cost, making it an ideal environment to deliver breaking news. The ‘hash tagging’ tool brings people together to update on the crisis, and gives users the opportunity to add their opinions in a shared space. Twitter needs to be a part of an organisations broader strategy to be used effectively. “Twitter is as much about preventing an isolated issue from becoming a full-blown crisis as it is about communicating quickly to key stakeholders and the public once a crisis has happened.” (Clark, 2011).

As I am not an avid user of Twitter, I am somewhat sceptical on the social media platform’s lifespan. I don’t think at this stage of the game it is a ‘vital’ tool for people living in a crisis, but a necessary one. I don’t think it will ever become ‘vital’ as there will always be something more new and shiny for people to be attracted to in our technological society.