Social Media is awesome.
This is not an unbiased blog post. But I suppose that's the point of a blog, now isn't it? I love social media. It's so interesting to me, seeing how so many people can connect so easily and quickly. I love making such connections and talking to people, about anything, really. I'm so glad my Media Writing teacher made our class sign on to Twitter. It's been one of my favorite things about this semester.
I hate it when people are so quick to put down Twitter. People who hate Twitter, usually don't understand Twitter. Or at least don't attempt to use it in a very productive way.
"It's just like Facebook," they say. But they're wrong. Sure, you can use Twitter to follow your 30 close friends who might use it as well. You can find out what they ate for breakfast or what time they're leaving work. But that's not all that interesting. Facebook is great... for it's own individual reasons. On facebook, you follow the lives and connect with people who you mainly know in person. It's a more unique social networking site targeted towards the individual.
When you use Twitter, you need to realize that you're part of something bigger. It's not all about you; it's about the community. It's about conversation. You follow and are followed on Twitter by strangers. But there are alot of strangers who are alot smarter than you. It does a person good to step outside their own personal network and listen to what someone across the country or across the world might have to say.
I've learned alot just listening to the variety of thoughts and opinions from random people on twitter. I follow republicans. I follow democrats. I follow moderates. I follow teachers. I follow my peers. I follow news stations. I follow radio stations. I follow Joe Schmoes. It's fun.
You only get out of Twitter, what you put into it. I think that's one thing that people new to Twitter need to realize. If you don't tweet, and you don't follow people, and you don't write things that are interesting to others and that involve others, you're not going to enjoy using twitter. If you want followers, reach out. If you want to learn things, type some of your interests into twitter's search engine and see who's talking about it. Find someone interesting? See who they follow. Be interesting. No one's going to be drawn to an a page without a picture and a few tweets about the family cat.
Just give it a chance, all you twitter haters. Yes, it can be time consuming if you let it, but you're in control. It can also be very rewarding. Take an hour out of your day and do some searching. You might like what you find.
Peace&Hiccups, Ellen
