The Twitterverse:
Twitter? What the heck is that? Twitter lingo has become a second language to thousands of teens, adults, celebrities, businesses and beyond. Here’s the breakdown:
Tweet: A tweet is a post or status update on Twitter, a microblogging service. Because Twitter only allows messages of 140 characters or less, "tweet" is as much a play on the size of the message as it is on the audible similarity to Twitter.
At Reply: A direct message donated with @ before a specific user name that is sent only to the Tweeter that was mentioned.
Direct Message: DM is used to send a private message to someone that the rest of the Twitterverse cannot see.
TwitPic: A Web site for users to post pictures to the Twitter service via tweet by uploading pics from mobile devices onto the site. Primarily used to capture moments as they are taking place in real-time.
Blog: A blog is a form of online writing, picture-taking, journaling, etc. for people to implement as a means of expressing thoughts, ideas, job opening, whatever! While a blog is not exclusive to Twitter, many users will add links to blogs as a means of sharing and distributing information to followers.
So that’s it! There are hundreds of other definitions within the social media world but these are a few you will hear the most of within this article and when first starting out with Twitter. If you don’t have a Twitter account already, jump on the Twitter bandwagon and go set one up at twitter.com!
Showing posts with label Twitter. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Twitter. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
FLOOD VICTIMS TURN TO TWITTER
Ali Rosenberger
ATHENS, Ga. - With excessive rainfall practically drowning the city of Atlanta the weeks surrounding September 20, 2009, people everywhere have been tuned in to keep track of the flood and its developments. Many students at the University of Georgia are Atlanta natives and turned to social media outlets like Facebook and Twitter for information about their hometown during the flood.
(Pictured above is flood damage to a home in Buckhead 2 days after the floodwater subsided)
Although TV and radio news maintain their audience, it is social media outlets that many are turning to as their primary news source. From updates on social networking Web sites like Facebook and Twitter, people of all ages are exchanging information through social media. With this constant flow of new information, social media users expect their news organizations to keep up.
News organizations everywhere broadcasted updates and details daily to inform the public of damages and future forecasts.
“My family lives in Buckhead, and I knew they were being affected by the flood because of what I heard on the news,” said Kieva Hannon, currently in her fifth year at UGA. “Having to be in class every day and not with my family during such a hard time has been really stressful.”
(Pictured right is Kieva Hannon, a 21 year old business major at the University of Georgia. Hannon is checking her Twitter page for updates about the flood.)
Hannon said that she stayed updated with details about her area through personal tweets—which are status updates or posts on Twitter of 140 characters or less—by her friends and neighbors still living in Atlanta. “Being able to see what was happening every minute through Twitter really gave me piece of mind throughout the whole thing,” Hannon said.
Hannon was not the only one looking to Twitter for flood updates. The tag “#atlflood” was one of the top trending topics on Twitter—trending topics are typically one-sentence summaries of the most popular topics that people are “tweeting” about. They are listed on the Twitter homepage, and clicking on a trending topic brings up the most recent tweets about that topic, and the latest news and photos for that topic.
Because people are obtaining newsworthy information through outlets like Twitter and Facebook, news organizations are presented with a challenge: maintaining their audience by having the most recent and reliable news at any second, at any time of day.
Twitter has been a raising eyebrows in the newsroom for going on three years now, it allows the organization to post minute by minute updates on breaking news. From national newspapers like the New York Times to campus newspapers like UGA’s Red and Black, since Twitter’s creation in 2006, more and more news organizations have incorporated it as one of their news sharing outlets.
“We have an automatic update system set up through Twitterfeed, where the top five stories printed every day go to the Red and Black’s Twitter page,” said Ed Morales, the editorial advisor for the Red and Black.
The Red and Black adds about 20 followers a day to their Twitter page. Morales also said that when there is local breaking news, especially news that affects students, there is a huge jump in followers. During the Zinkhan case in Athens, for instance, the Red and Black gained over 1,000 followers in 36 hours.
Morales’s phone is synced to the Red and Black’s Twitter page.
“When there is breaking news, either I or another one of the editors will personally update our site,” Morales said. “Like when the Georgia Theater was burning down, for example, I was the one tweeting updates because I was actually there.”
When it comes to non-local news, Morales said the Red and Black tends to leave it up to larger publications to inform the public. During the Atlanta flood, for instance, Morales said he hoped people would have gone to the Atlanta Journal Constitution first, because those are the reporters on site, with the most up to date information.
“I might have posted links to other news sources on my personal Twitter page, but the Red and Black is a campus newspaper. There’s no need to report secondary information,” Morales said.
The AJC posted flood updates via Twitter almost every hour during the primary days of the flood. From weather forecasts to school closings to missing persons, the AJC made sure to have up-to-date information that its audience could rely on.
“My family really isn’t one of the most technologically savvy families I know…” said Anne Jones, a senior fashion major at UGA. But Jones said that her family recently started using Twitter to stay connected.
“I’ve got a brother at school in Alabama, and one that works in Chicago” Jones said, “and rather than my parents calling each of us with updates about what had been going on, dad just posted to his Twitter page.”
Even now, in the weeks after the flood, the AJC continues to tweet information about repairs being done, missing persons, and even information on hazards like sinkholes caused by the excessive rainfall. This information has been crucial to many family members of UGA students still living in metro-Atlanta.
“The only reason I use Twitter is to stay updated with news. I can connect to it from my iPhone, and get updates all day of what’s going on or who’s doing what,” said Pam Griffin, a 44-year old from Woodstock, Ga. “And what’s more is that I can follow a number of news sites at a time, unlike listening to a radio station or watching TV,” said Griffin.
Griffin has 2 kids, one of whom attends Gainesville State University in Athens, Ga. She said they are the ones responsible for introducing her to Twitter, and teaching her how to use it to her advantage. (Pictured left is road damage caused by the flooding in Marietta, Ga.)
“I have had to change my route to work twice since the flood because of road closings,” said Griffin, an insurance agent who commutes from Woodstock to Atlanta daily, “and I only heard about the closings before I actually stumbled upon them because of Twitter,” Griffin said.
The New Political Wheel
Kristen Luca
Politics and political campaigning may be developing a new face on the Internet with the expansion of online social media.
Social media services like Twitter and Facebook allow users to quickly get messages out to large groups of people. According to a recent New York Times article, the tracking firm comScore has measured Twitter’s traffic at 54 million visitors a month. For politicians and political candidates who are committed to getting their names and messages out to their constituents, these Web sites might hold potential.
Samantha Jose, communications director for the Young Democrats at the University of Georgia, said that the Democratic Party has already taken advantage of social media. She referenced President Obama’s 2008 campaign, and his use of Facebook and Twitter to spread the word about his platforms on issues and updates about events.
Jose also thought the Democratic Party takes more advantage of social media services than the Republican Party does. “I’d like to think we’re a little bit quicker on the uptake,” she said.
Matthew Ralston, PR Director for UGA’s College Republicans, said that he thought the Republican Party as a whole was not using social media as much as the Democratic Party. Ralston said at the moment few Republicans were utilizing the services.
“It’s like the wheel has just come out of the sky for them,” Ralston said.
However, he also thought that in the future more Republicans would come to use the services. He pointed to the low cost of social media and their ability to reach many people in just a few clicks.
But social media is not useful only to campaigning politicians. In June, Reuters reported that the U.S. State Department asked Twitter to delay an upgrade that would have shut the service down during the day in Iran. Iranians protesting the presidential election results were using Twitter to speak with each other and get past communication blocks set up by the Iranian government.
Private citizens like the Iranians, more traditionally associated with the expansion of social media, have the opportunity to use social technology not only as an audience but as active participants.
Samantha Jose, of the Young Democrats, thinks that the greatest advantage in using social media to spread political ideas is that citizens are more informed. “Social media allows for debate to be way more instantaneous,” Jose said.
She added that on the Internet, there is no filter for information. Access to publishing software on the Web is cheap and often free, allowing anyone with a connection to upload their thoughts and hold a conversation. However, Jose thinks that the benefits of using social media outweigh the risk of encountering less substantial or non-credible information.
Users can find other benefits to having politicians on Facebook and Twitter, too. Allison Clark, an Advertising major, used social media to find out what political ideas and beliefs her friends and acquaintances held. She looked on Facebook to see what politicians her friends had become ‘fans’ of, and even became a fan of a politician herself.
Allison Clark said that she also believed Democrats used social media “better” than Republicans. “Democrats target a younger audience, so they have to be more knowledgeable” about social media, Allison Clark said. She added, however, “Republicans are getting there.”
People using social media for political purposes can also send messages to their online network in the process. Ben Clark, a UGA student and member of the Young Democrats, says that he ‘friended’ several politicians on Facebook during the 2008 election season. He follows President Barack Obama, Sen. Chris Dodd and former Sen. John Edwards on Facebook.
Having his Facebook accounts associated with the politicians’ is not entirely to read through their updates and messages, though. “During the election,” Ben Clark said, “I wanted everyone to know who I supported.”
Edited by: Megan Niager
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Twitter Establishes Presence in the Hunt for Jobs
Megan Niager
“There are a lot of Twitter naysayers out there. Until you start playing with Twitter, it’s hard to understand the value of it,” said Sloane Kelly, content developer for BFG Communications in Savannah, Ga., who used this social media tool to invite job seekers to post their application for a recent job opening at the company.
Kelly works in the content department at BFG, “a nationally ranked, brand building creative solutions machine,” according to their Web site. Kelly arrived at the company roughly three years ago and while BFG already had blog as a means to get their feet wet, there needed to be more of a social media presence, she said.
BFG has several social media accounts, including Facebook, Flickr and MySpace and while the content department works as a collaborative force to update their social media, Kelly maintains the Twitter account. “Twitter is the world that I like to play in,” she said.
Twitter is a social media networking site that gives users the opportunity to post “tweets” about whatever they wish in 140 characters or less. In the words of the service, “It is what you make of it.”
BFG had previously mentioned job openings via Twitter, but this was the first time they specifically asked for interested parties to apply for a position as Assistant Content Manager without the traditional cover letter and resume, she said.
After posting the opening via Twitter, BFG Communications wrote on their blog, “We decided to do things differently this time around with the application process… The job requires a great deal of social media savvy. So the hope is applicants will not only show us why they’re perfect for the job but also their understanding of Twitter and the social web.”
“It’s been awesome and an interesting way to get to know people,” she said. There was a lot of creativity in the way that people respond, Kelly said.
BFG received highly positive response from an impressive group of people, she said. There have been several applicants who stood out creatively and made good use of the social media space, which is exactly what they’re looking for, Kelly said.
Nicole Galletta, 27, saw the tweet posted by BFG inviting job seekers to apply for their opening via Twitter. Galletta had been recently laid off from Sojo, Inc, a branding and marketing firm in Atlanta, Ga., and used the social networking resources she was already a part of to find a new job.
Galletta replied to the BFG tweet by posting a link to a blog she wrote as a means to sell herself to the company. Her tweet was public, meaning it could be seen by all users on Twitter. “It was pretty bold,” Galletta said. She said she's never put a job out there like that before.
Galletta said she’s definitely benefited from using social media, especially Twitter. Just as in real life, people benefit from the connections they have with people, she said. “With Twitter, you establish a connection and reap the benefits,” Galletta said.
“Twitter is the place to be,” she said. She explained a lot of people are still confused about Twitter, thinking, “it’s like just updating your Facebook status a bunch of times.”
Janet Fouts is an expert in the field of social media. As a "social media enabler", she defines her job as helping people understand what social media is and figure out what their goals are within the social media world. She then helps them implement those goals.
From an article on her Web site entitled “Job Hunting with Social Media”, Fouts pointed out that “everything that is written on Twitter is archived in just a few minutes by the search engines.” Fouts encourages her clients to perform a Google search on themselves and analyze the message and perception they are delivering to the virtual world.
Many people are adopting social media already in job searches, she said. “Pretty soon, you’re not going to be able to ignore it because it’s going to become the norm,” Fouts said. Fouts said to use Twitter to let your loyal followers know that you’re looking for a job, and be specific about what you’re looking for.
Heather Huhman is the founder and President of Come Recommended, which is an online community that connects the best entry level candidates with the best employer, she said. Huhman also tweets and post public relations related job openings on Twitter.
Huhman said she has heard from 100 new hires this year who said they obtained a job through a tweet or link that she posted. "I need people to tell me," she said. She said that there's really no way to track the success rate if she doesn't hear from applicants.
Sloane Kelly of BFG Communications doesn’t know if this form of job application will become a trend for everyone but it has worked for them. "We’re always trying to push the envelope and break the typical mold by thinking outside of the box," she said. "That’s what we’re all about."
Edited by: Kristen Luca
“There are a lot of Twitter naysayers out there. Until you start playing with Twitter, it’s hard to understand the value of it,” said Sloane Kelly, content developer for BFG Communications in Savannah, Ga., who used this social media tool to invite job seekers to post their application for a recent job opening at the company.
Kelly works in the content department at BFG, “a nationally ranked, brand building creative solutions machine,” according to their Web site. Kelly arrived at the company roughly three years ago and while BFG already had blog as a means to get their feet wet, there needed to be more of a social media presence, she said.
BFG has several social media accounts, including Facebook, Flickr and MySpace and while the content department works as a collaborative force to update their social media, Kelly maintains the Twitter account. “Twitter is the world that I like to play in,” she said.
Twitter is a social media networking site that gives users the opportunity to post “tweets” about whatever they wish in 140 characters or less. In the words of the service, “It is what you make of it.”
BFG had previously mentioned job openings via Twitter, but this was the first time they specifically asked for interested parties to apply for a position as Assistant Content Manager without the traditional cover letter and resume, she said.
After posting the opening via Twitter, BFG Communications wrote on their blog, “We decided to do things differently this time around with the application process… The job requires a great deal of social media savvy. So the hope is applicants will not only show us why they’re perfect for the job but also their understanding of Twitter and the social web.”
“It’s been awesome and an interesting way to get to know people,” she said. There was a lot of creativity in the way that people respond, Kelly said.
BFG received highly positive response from an impressive group of people, she said. There have been several applicants who stood out creatively and made good use of the social media space, which is exactly what they’re looking for, Kelly said.
Nicole Galletta, 27, saw the tweet posted by BFG inviting job seekers to apply for their opening via Twitter. Galletta had been recently laid off from Sojo, Inc, a branding and marketing firm in Atlanta, Ga., and used the social networking resources she was already a part of to find a new job.
Galletta replied to the BFG tweet by posting a link to a blog she wrote as a means to sell herself to the company. Her tweet was public, meaning it could be seen by all users on Twitter. “It was pretty bold,” Galletta said. She said she's never put a job out there like that before.
Galletta said she’s definitely benefited from using social media, especially Twitter. Just as in real life, people benefit from the connections they have with people, she said. “With Twitter, you establish a connection and reap the benefits,” Galletta said.
“Twitter is the place to be,” she said. She explained a lot of people are still confused about Twitter, thinking, “it’s like just updating your Facebook status a bunch of times.”
Janet Fouts is an expert in the field of social media. As a "social media enabler", she defines her job as helping people understand what social media is and figure out what their goals are within the social media world. She then helps them implement those goals.
From an article on her Web site entitled “Job Hunting with Social Media”, Fouts pointed out that “everything that is written on Twitter is archived in just a few minutes by the search engines.” Fouts encourages her clients to perform a Google search on themselves and analyze the message and perception they are delivering to the virtual world.
Many people are adopting social media already in job searches, she said. “Pretty soon, you’re not going to be able to ignore it because it’s going to become the norm,” Fouts said. Fouts said to use Twitter to let your loyal followers know that you’re looking for a job, and be specific about what you’re looking for.
Heather Huhman is the founder and President of Come Recommended, which is an online community that connects the best entry level candidates with the best employer, she said. Huhman also tweets and post public relations related job openings on Twitter.
Huhman said she has heard from 100 new hires this year who said they obtained a job through a tweet or link that she posted. "I need people to tell me," she said. She said that there's really no way to track the success rate if she doesn't hear from applicants.
Sloane Kelly of BFG Communications doesn’t know if this form of job application will become a trend for everyone but it has worked for them. "We’re always trying to push the envelope and break the typical mold by thinking outside of the box," she said. "That’s what we’re all about."
Edited by: Kristen Luca
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Athens Music Industry Adopts Twitter
Athens Music Industry Adopts Twitter
By Christopher Benton
The blank (screen) generation is all atwitter about Twitter, tweets, (hash) tags, and other jargonic miscellany associated with the “micro” blog. With its sub-text-message mantra of “140 characters or less,” Twitter is breaking down the former walls of communication and eliminating the middleman. The effect of this is clear in the music industry, which is rapidly adopting the technology for various forms of promotion. Many local members of the Athens music community are finding ways to use Twitter, too.
“I just got one,” Andrew Dykes, a solo folk artist who plays under the pseudonym Green Gerry, said. “I was hesitant to use Twitter at first, but then my friend made me one. I mostly use it so fans know what I’m up to…”
For Dykes, Twitter is not just a one-way interface with fans, but a dialogue. And while he may use Twitter to publicize himself and reach out to fans, his fans have also reached back, even sometimes helping him while on tour:
“Whenever I’m on tour, the question is, like, ‘Do I have to sleep in the car again tonight?,’ and there’s this mad search to find someone to stay with and couch-surf. But when I started posting on Twitter that I was looking for somewhere to stay in town, I’d sometimes get like 5 replies.”
Twitter may frequently be about self-promotion but sometimes, the self-promotion needs self-promotion. This need for meta-promotion is one of the service’s main drawbacks, at least, that is according to Daniel Clower, a local booker and band manager.
“When I was an intern working with social media for a PR company…we made a few [band] Twitters but the problem we had was getting people to follow. Even for our larger groups with tens of thousand of MySpace friends, we couldn’t even break a thousand on Twitter…The question was, ‘How do people know this Twitter even exists?’”
Clower tried advertising various Twitter accounts on other social media sites like MySpace and Facebook, but still to no avail.
“We quickly realized we were pushing the wrong content…publicists may run MySpace pages but when fans see a Twitter I think they want a personal connection to the band, so bands should operate their own accounts.”
While the “If you build, they will come” adage may not work in the Twitter world, there does seem to be a correlation to the amount of the “Tweets,” or posts a user makes, with the amount of people who follow.
Adrian Zelski, lead singer in the reggae band DubConscious agrees. “We have a twitter but I stopped tweeting when we got really busy and I purchased the club [New Earth Music Hall]…last time I checked, I think we had at least one thousand less followers."
Consistency may be the key, and while his band may have stopped “tweeting,” Zelski hasn’t given up experimenting with uses for the service for his other ventures. Zelski’s newly opened music venue “New Earth Music Hall,” on West Dougherty St. has a new Twitter account. So far, it’s mostly a forum for announcing shows and drink specials.
It’s not just the artists, their publicists, and the symbiotic venue system that has the Twitter bug, the publications that cover the whole thing has it too. Michelle Gilzenrat, music editor for local magazine Flagpole, has been tweeting for over a year, mostly announcing secret shows and posting local music news. The speed of Twitter’s service was especially useful this May: when the Georgia Theatre caught fire around 7 am, Gilzenrat’s Twitter was constantly updated with instantaneous news about the event, hours before Flagpole’s official site could post the same news.
Twitter may be a useful tool for music industry, but it is still just one pillar of a much more vast structure needed to promote music. Publicist Michelle Roche, who runs the local PR firm Michelle Roche Media Relations, likes the new tools offered by the Web 2.0 paradigm, but issued a warning in her address to UGA’s chapter of International Association of Business Communicators a year ago:
“Although MySpace Music, Facebook and Twitter and all these other so-called ‘social media’ tools are allowing musicians to connect directly with fans, and publicize themselves, there is still a definite need for music publicists.”
Twitter is far from the ultimate promotional tool, but it certainly has been a game changer for the music industry. And as Twitter further develops, it seems local musicians will find even newer, cooler ways to utilize the service.
By Christopher Benton
The blank (screen) generation is all atwitter about Twitter, tweets, (hash) tags, and other jargonic miscellany associated with the “micro” blog. With its sub-text-message mantra of “140 characters or less,” Twitter is breaking down the former walls of communication and eliminating the middleman. The effect of this is clear in the music industry, which is rapidly adopting the technology for various forms of promotion. Many local members of the Athens music community are finding ways to use Twitter, too.
“I just got one,” Andrew Dykes, a solo folk artist who plays under the pseudonym Green Gerry, said. “I was hesitant to use Twitter at first, but then my friend made me one. I mostly use it so fans know what I’m up to…”
For Dykes, Twitter is not just a one-way interface with fans, but a dialogue. And while he may use Twitter to publicize himself and reach out to fans, his fans have also reached back, even sometimes helping him while on tour:
“Whenever I’m on tour, the question is, like, ‘Do I have to sleep in the car again tonight?,’ and there’s this mad search to find someone to stay with and couch-surf. But when I started posting on Twitter that I was looking for somewhere to stay in town, I’d sometimes get like 5 replies.”
Twitter may frequently be about self-promotion but sometimes, the self-promotion needs self-promotion. This need for meta-promotion is one of the service’s main drawbacks, at least, that is according to Daniel Clower, a local booker and band manager.
“When I was an intern working with social media for a PR company…we made a few [band] Twitters but the problem we had was getting people to follow. Even for our larger groups with tens of thousand of MySpace friends, we couldn’t even break a thousand on Twitter…The question was, ‘How do people know this Twitter even exists?’”
Clower tried advertising various Twitter accounts on other social media sites like MySpace and Facebook, but still to no avail.
“We quickly realized we were pushing the wrong content…publicists may run MySpace pages but when fans see a Twitter I think they want a personal connection to the band, so bands should operate their own accounts.”
While the “If you build, they will come” adage may not work in the Twitter world, there does seem to be a correlation to the amount of the “Tweets,” or posts a user makes, with the amount of people who follow.
Adrian Zelski, lead singer in the reggae band DubConscious agrees. “We have a twitter but I stopped tweeting when we got really busy and I purchased the club [New Earth Music Hall]…last time I checked, I think we had at least one thousand less followers."
Consistency may be the key, and while his band may have stopped “tweeting,” Zelski hasn’t given up experimenting with uses for the service for his other ventures. Zelski’s newly opened music venue “New Earth Music Hall,” on West Dougherty St. has a new Twitter account. So far, it’s mostly a forum for announcing shows and drink specials.
It’s not just the artists, their publicists, and the symbiotic venue system that has the Twitter bug, the publications that cover the whole thing has it too. Michelle Gilzenrat, music editor for local magazine Flagpole, has been tweeting for over a year, mostly announcing secret shows and posting local music news. The speed of Twitter’s service was especially useful this May: when the Georgia Theatre caught fire around 7 am, Gilzenrat’s Twitter was constantly updated with instantaneous news about the event, hours before Flagpole’s official site could post the same news.
Twitter may be a useful tool for music industry, but it is still just one pillar of a much more vast structure needed to promote music. Publicist Michelle Roche, who runs the local PR firm Michelle Roche Media Relations, likes the new tools offered by the Web 2.0 paradigm, but issued a warning in her address to UGA’s chapter of International Association of Business Communicators a year ago:
“Although MySpace Music, Facebook and Twitter and all these other so-called ‘social media’ tools are allowing musicians to connect directly with fans, and publicize themselves, there is still a definite need for music publicists.”
Twitter is far from the ultimate promotional tool, but it certainly has been a game changer for the music industry. And as Twitter further develops, it seems local musicians will find even newer, cooler ways to utilize the service.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)