In February of 2009, I signed up for a Twitter account. Since then, I have tweeted a total of three times.
It appears that the first time I was “looking for camera stuff,” which I assume was probably just me posting anything I could think of on the day I created the account, still unsure of how it all worked.
The second tweet appears to be an instagram photo I posted of my husband cuddled on the couch in a rather girlie blanket, in April of this year. I think I may have posted that one by accident, really meaning to post it onto my Facebook account.
The third tweet was done just the other day, when I decided I should finally learn about Twitter and take advantage of what it could potentially offer. It was an incredibly non-relevant tweet, and looking at it now, I realize I still don’t take Twitter very seriously and can’t seem to wrap my head around it.
Working in the media, I know it’s something I should really learn. I’m an avid Facebook user, and I have no issues posting about my personal life daily, along with posting regularly on the St. Paul Journal Facebook page and also on my own small business page.
I get Facebook. But, I still don’t get Twitter and its hashtags.
Maybe it’s because I already feel like social media takes up enough of my time during the day, and I can’t find it in me to learn about and check into Twitter on a regular basis. I see the potential value. From a journalism point of view, keeping up on local, provincial and national issues is important, and these days, that means keeping an eye on social media.
Getting people engaged in the news is also an important part of my job, and social media is an amazing tool for engaging readers and getting feedback on relevant issues.
Last week, as I was reading the news online, I came across the story of how Twitter recently made its stock debut. According to the story, the social media company exceeded expectations on the stock exchange, and based on the opening price, Twitter was valued at more than $31 billion.
This huge dollar value made me question how Twitter actually makes money. And so, in my quest to figure out Twitter, I did what most people do when they have a random question needing to be answered, I asked Google.
As I typed in “How does Twitter make money?” a number of articles appeared. After scanning over a few, I found it rather similar to how Facebook advertises and gets users to pay for their posts/tweets to appear more frequently or in more prominent places. Simple enough.
I did find it funny that users can buy fake followers on Twitter though, making them look more popular than they really are. For example, a whopping 46 per cent of pop singer Katy Perry’s Twitter followers are allegedly fake.
Data sharing is of course another form of revenue for these social media companies. Selling information collected from its users to be used in marketing strategies.
By the end of the week, my efforts to learn about Twitter really didn’t pay off (even after reading some articles on how to use hashtags) and I don’t think I am any closer to being a regular Twitter user.
I did follow a few more random people, mostly celebrities or other media outlets, but I have yet to tweet beyond my three initial tweets. #maybeoneday
