Prior to starting the ALES204
course I was familiar with the word "Twitter" and new it was an
online website where people could tweet what was on their mind etc. I have had Facebook
for years and although on the news and talk shows would mention others were
tweeting or themselves tweeting to their followers, I never was interested in
joining. Even though I really had no idea as to what twitter was all about (Follow me at Christie Badach @chrischris65).
Within the first week of my ALES204 class we were required to join Twitter and
follow our professor. Very quickly I learned how precise tweets must be. Limited
to only 140 characters it was initially very difficult to express what I wanted
to say and it mad you consciously think of only the important words. By joining twitter the members of the class
were able to participate during the class time by tweeting our ideas, opinions
and suggestions to the topics being discussed or a presentation being
made. Twitter made it easy to stay involved
with the class and also gave the professor an idea of who is present and
participating in the class. We learned about hash tagging and how easy it was
to connect anyone who was looking and wanted to follow a specific word or
topic. A few examples of hash tags used are #ALES204, #smoothsailing, #ABroads,
as you can see it is very easy to create or find a hash tag on anything. The
hash tag was a great use in the ALES204 class because your personal tweet with
the #ALES204 hash tag could be searched and found by anyone in the class or
worldwide.
Screenshot of Twitter Homepage where you can sign-up and begin tweeting. Screen shot taken by Christie Badach on April 5th, 2012 and original site found at https://twitter.com/.
I found Twitter as being a very useful form of
social media as it allows you to follow anyone you would like without them
following you. I was also pleased to find local businesses and others further
away with Twitter accounts that allowed me to follow them and keep up to date
with sales, new products and upcoming events. I few businesses I was happy and surprised
to find were Greenhawk Equestrian supplies ( @greenhawkinc) and Sprucemeadows
( @Spruce_Meadows) both which I frequently visit every year to buy horse
supplies and watch the show jumping. I was also please to find Ellen DeGeneres
( @TheEllenShow ) who’s show I enjoy watching and can now follow online as well. Twitter is
great to get yourself known or your business exposed. The most important aspect
is to remain professional as you never know who may be reading your posts.
Recently with the up-coming
elections it was shown how Twitter could be used unprofessionally and how it
could negatively impact someone. The dispute was between Progressive
Conservative Leader Alison Redford and the Wildrose Leader Danielle Smith. An
executive assistant of Alison Reford tweeted an inappropriate message attacking
Danielle Smith, stating "If @ElectDanielle likes young and growing
families so much, why doesn't she have children of her own?” Although Alison
Reford apologized and the executive assistant resigned the damage had been done
and the comment until removed was seen worldwide. The disappointing part is the
assumption was made that Smith did not want kids when in fact her and her
husband had tried having children even with assistance of a fertility clinic
and were unsuccessful. As with any online social media people are at free will
to post and write what they want but this is where I find Twitter more
dangerous as messages put on twitter can be seen worldwide whereas with another
social media such as Facebook, the user must be friends to see other peoples
pages. As well there are privacy settings that allow for adjustments to be made
to who and what can be viewed.
Regardless of the social media
one is involved in it is the user’s responsibility to be careful and
professional about what they are posting and to realize any potential impact.
The decisions made may not only affect others but they can affect one as well. Employer’s
family members can all search and read what has been said and inappropriate
events could lead to loss of jobs and family disputes. The way in which a post
is written can also have an impact on what opinion could be made. I think it is
great we have sites that can allow us to express our opinions but it is important
to keep everything as neutral as possible. After searching other students blogs I found one who was also a twitter skepic and her post can be found on her blogspot.
I was in the same boat as you! Before this class I only had a slight idea of what Twitter actually was. Saying what you felt, when you felt like saying it. But you are completely right! Only having 140 characters you have to put a lot of thought into what you are actually saying!
ReplyDeleteI didn't really know what Twitter was before this class either. I had heard of it, but had no idea what it was used for besides telling people what you were doing. Now I can see the usefulness of Twitter, for connecting with people and professionally networking. However, I found that having to tweet on topics during class was really distracting. Being worried about tweeting and not focusing on the speaker really took away from the lectures for me.
ReplyDeleteI myself find it difficult to meet the 140 character requirement on tweets. I usually compose what I want to say and then spend time editing it down to meet the 140 character limit. Most of the time the editing requires more time than the actual composition, something I never would have imagined. This allowed me to practice writing more concise responses.
ReplyDeleteAside from that, I agree that we have to be more careful about what we write on social media devices as in some cases the whole world sees it. Privacy is not what it used to be as more people communicate via twitter or other social media tools although there is the option of creating an alias username.