To tweet or not to tweet? Tweet! Twitter is an amazing outlet, but I find that most people do not know how to use it well or properly (kind of like me with Facebook!). I was reluctant to sign up at first, but a friend gave me a quick tutorial (there's only a few technological hacks and manners/courtesy/protocols to know and you're off and running)! I was an earlier adopted (2009) and have been more active on Twitter than any other social media. So much so that The Atlantic came calling (I'm the nun with the most Twitter followers in the world, evidently) and did an article that the writer entitled The Nun Who Got Addicted to Twitter. At first I was put out by the title, but then realized maybe she was right!
WHAT'S TWITTER FOR?
Why Twitter? People used to say "Twitter is for tweeting what you had for breakfast. Your every little movement and thought. But who cares?" But that, of course would be boring and an abuse of Twitter. The first thing I did on Twitter was to follow all my favorite magazines and new sources (secular and religious). And there I was. Sitting there like my own little newsroom, getting up-to-the-minute feeds from the finest news outlets in the world! I then began following people who seemed to be in the know and retweet factual information. I slowly made friends until Twitter began "suggesting friends" which was the best feature ever, because it really "knew" who I would be interested in following, and, of course, it was suggesting me for others to follow.
Twitter tends to be for serious-minded people (although we have a lot of fun!) who want to share news and information (by putting links with most tweets). People can either just read your "headlines" or click for more info.
TWITTER-FAMOUS
Priests and nuns are automatic celebs on Twitter, but there are FAR more priests on Twitter than nuns, so that made me big stuff. A big fish in a small ocean. A Benedictine nun, @digitalnun, who tweets from England (and it just rising when I'm going to bed) is probably the second most followed nun on Twitter.
TWITTER CAN CHANGE THE WORLD
The Twitter naysayers stopped when the first big Twitter coup happened: The Arab Spring and the Iran (Green) Revolution. The Iranian regime was tracking people who were protesting and trying to shut down people with Twitter locations in Tehran. What did the world do? We all put a green sheen on our avatars in solidarity AND changed our "location" to Tehran to jam the system and make it impossible for the authorities to track anyone.
The second great Twitter event that I took part in was an organic "Twitterstorm" that wasn't planned but just happened when the media outrageously "blacked out" the trial of infamous, sadistic, racist abortionist, Kermit Gosnell. In protest, many of us just simply kept shooting out #Gosnell tweets all day, taunting the media for their choice to ignore the horrific, newsworthy facts (unsterlized equipment, poor treatment for black women, good treatment for white women, babies heads kept as souvenirs in jars in freezers, high rate of fatalities of mothers, etc.). Suddenly, #Gosnell was trending and Kirsten Powers of USA Today started to take notice, started covering the trial and challenging her peers to do the same. They looked at the facts and realized their error and coverage was forthcoming.
TWITTER'S NOT DEAD!
"The reports of Twitter's demise are greatly exaggerated," to paraphrase Mark Twain. Lately in the news there's been a buzz of the "leveling off" of Twitter. Here's a recent article claiming Twitter is "passé" http://www.thestar.com/business/2015/01/09/facebook_most_popular_instagram_most_loved_in_social_media_survey.html. But like all great inventions, there is a saturation point. Perhaps Twitter is nearing it, but Twitter has always been a medium OF the people, BY the people and FOR the people. Twitter founders sat by and watched as "RT" and "hashtags" were invented by the users. Twitter modifies features very rarely and minimally, and when it does, its to accommodate what users have already begun. Unlike FB (IMHO), Twitter's changes are ALWAYS for the better, for the users, whereas FB's changes are always worse and for FB's coffers.
A DISADVANTAGE OF TWITTER
Although Twitter allows tweets through in real time, unlike Facebook which never shows everything you post to all your friends or followers or fans: a.) because its algorithm is trying to show you the "best," most popular things and things that they are guessing you'll want to see based on its matching your interests, AND b.) FB wants you to pay to "boost" your posts. BUT Twitter requires that you "catch" the tweet (or retweet) in real time or you miss it...as the scroll/feed goes on: http://marketingland.com/facebook-twitter-impressions-90878. You could keep tweeting the same thing (with slight alterations--you're not allowed to do that), but that's just bad form. The best way it to tweet an important item a few times at peak times.
IN CONCLUSION
I'm a bit surprised at the stats below. Surprised at how low the percentage of "news" tweets are, since that's mostly what I use it for! Also, it's interesting that Twitter has "only" about 250,000,000 users worldwide compared to Facebook's 1.3 billion users and 300,000,000 Instagram users.
FROM WIKIPEDIA
According to research published in April 2014, around 44 percent of user accounts have never tweeted.[105]
Content
San Antonio-based market-research firm Pear Analytics analyzed 2,000 tweets (originating from the United States and in English) over a two-week period in August 2009 from 11:00 am to 5:00 pm (CST) and separated them into six categories:[106]
- Pointless babble – 40%
- Conversational – 38%
- Pass-along value – 9%
- Self-promotion – 6%
- Spam – 4%
- News – 4%
Despite Jack Dorsey's own open contention that a message on Twitter is "a short burst of inconsequential information", social networking researcher danah boyd responded to the Pear Analytics survey by arguing that what the Pear researchers labelled "pointless babble" is better characterized as "social grooming" and/or "peripheral awareness" (which she justifies as persons "want[ing] to know what the people around them are thinking and doing and feeling, even when co-presence isn't viable").[107] Similarly, a survey of Twitter users found that a more specific social role of passing along messages that include a hyperlink is an expectation of reciprocal linking by followers.[108]
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