Who would have thought that 140 characters would have become such an important social force? I certainly didn’t back in 2006 when Twitter was introduced to the world. However, Twitter has become one of the most influential platforms in existence.
While there are many people who use Twitter purely to update their followers on what they are eating for lunch, Twitter has also been used in many more meaningful ways. For example, Twitter was widely used during the Egyptian revolution of 2011. Social media platforms, especially Twitter, were used to help facilitate plans and to get the message of the revolution out internationally. Similarly, people in places such as Iran risk their lives in an attempt to gain world aid by reaching out through social media.
News in general just travels faster on Twitter. In an age that values information that’s fast and to the point, Twitter is the perfect source for many people to stay up to date. Trends, which are displayed to the side of your Twitter home screen, show the most popular topics being tweeted about either locally or worldwide. Generally if there is a big news story taking place, it will end up becoming a trending topic on Twitter. Celebrities also like to make use of Twitter, especially Late Night’s Jimmy Fallon in the US who has a weekly segment entitled ‘Late Night Hashtags’ where every week he gives his audience a hashtag such as ‘#misheardlyrics’ and every Wednesday he reads his favourites on air.
Hashtags are a particularly interesting outcome of Twitter. Almost every social media platform these days makes use of hashtags, including Facebook and Instagram. The general idea behind hashtags is to categorise or bring emphasis to what you’re saying. For example, if you were tweeting about the World Cup, and you wanted it to show up in the newsfeed with all of the other tweets about the World Cup, you would probably finish off your tweet with #worldcup.
Twitter can be a great way to engage with your audience. Pope Francis himself has a popular Twitter account, Pontifex, which puts out tweets daily. It can be an indispensible way to stay connected and engaged with your followers, and parishes and dioceses could easily take advantage of this.
You don’t have to tweet in order to make an account. There are many people on Twitter who have an account purely so that they can follow others. If you really want to stay up to date with the Pope’s tweets but you yourself don’t want to be tweeting, there is nothing that requires you to have to tweet.
Your account will not go inactive if you never send out tweets. Just make sure that if you are using Twitter to follow your favourite celebrities and sources of information that you are following the verified accounts to make sure the accounts are authentic. Verified accounts will have a small blue check mark next to the person’s name, and this lets you know that it is not some random stranger on the internet pretending to be someone they’re not.
There is no arguing the fact Twitter has become an integral part of our society. According to official statistics an incredible 500 million tweets are sent out every day. What started as a simple venture to encourage people to send messages in a shorter and faster format is now a worldwide means of communication.