Retweeting

In class we have learned the benefit of retweeting posts on Twitter.  In fact we spent a whole class period just going through Twitter looking for social media type information that we can retweet to share with our own Twitter followers.  We searched for social media type topics.  Twitter makes it really easy to do this because you can search topics by their hashtags.  I was able to put social media in the search bar and every tweet that a user wrote about social media would pop up.  The whole purpose of retweeting is to spread the word on the information that other users are putting out.  People that follow me on Twitter may have never read the tweets that I retweet if I had never reposted them.  Like for instance my roommates are pharmacy majors and even though they are interested in some of the articles that I would post especially articles involving social media because you don't have to be a PR major to enjoy learning new things about your social media.  So retweeting benefits the user that wrote the article as well as the other followers who may have never had a chance to read the article before.

Crisis Communication

In chapter 7 of Real-Time Marketing the author talks about Twitter as a crisis communication tool.  This specific part of the chapter explains how using Twitter can help the media, bloggers and news reporters find out more information on a crisis.  The book says that if you find yourself in surprise situation such as a crisis you Tweet the information as well as pictures, video and any information that you can provide.  As I mentioned in another blog hashtags are also important.  If you hashtag a certain saying the media can access your information to learn more about the crisis that has taken place from a firsthand source.  Another way to get your information out is to tag a certain media in your tweet so that your information goes right to the source that will be covering the event.  I think that Twitter is really an up and coming social media.  It is very convenient and straight to the point with all of its information.  It will be a great resource for crisis communication in the future.

The Real Hashtag usage

I have had a Twitter account for about a year now and I love it.  I never thought that I would grow to like it as much as I have.  I originally got an account because of my friends nagging me all the time to do it.  I'm so glad they did.  But when I tweet I use hashtags to display emotions or even just funny sayings that I know my friends will appreciate.  Now I know their real use.  In Real-Time Marketing in chapter 6 it explains that hashtags are actually supposed to be used as a way for the media to look up a breaking news topic.  For instance a there is a fire in your local town.  If you begin tweeting about it you could put #Adafire as your tag at the end of your tweet and people researching the story could see what others were tweeting by looking up the hashtag! This is really cool to me.  I knew that hashtags were a way to see what was trending on twitter but I had no idea that you could search tweets by these labels.  I feel so informed and a whole new part of Twitter has been opened up to me.  This makes me love Twitter even more. Procrastination here I come!