Social Media for Business and Personal Professional Use: Twitter

Physical distance between people of different social classes is physically broken by Twitter. Instead of their being societal barriers between certain groups, (i.e. senators or congressmen and the general public), people can now tweet their concerns, comments or questions directly to these previously off-limits parties.

Twitter has begun to have profound implications on many spheres of our current lives, from journalism, to business, to law and education. While it is a beneficial tool, it is equally important to take a look at what Twitter means in our modern sphere. It has shaped and somewhat altered the way that journalists collect and distribute information or breaking news stories. It has been used as an advertising tool for businesses and the raising of political campaign funds. Furthermore, the educational implications of Twitter on education have made children less emotionally aware of the implications of their actions, due to the instantaneous nature of the social media site.

Twitter's has been suggested as a useful tool on college campuses among professor and students in order to communicate interesting topics, links or videos. While a study was conducted on this and some researchers thought it to be beneficial, there is an issue of scholarly information not being widely distributed across Twitter's parameters makes it a less useful scholarly tool in a highly-driven academic setting.

Some users of Twitter have found themselves in hot water after tweeting certain information that was found to be false and libelous. Essentially, one can be sued for their tweets, even under First Amendment protection, provided that the information tweeted can be proven to be malicious, slanderous or libelous. In this way, users, while enjoying a new form of social media, are still reminded that their comments and conversations are not private, therefore they must still tweet with discretion.

Twitter has also seemed to devolve the way in which news is written, packaged and presented. Instead of being lengthy, covering all bases and answering the 5 W's, news is now short snippets designed to keep readers interested and on-edge. Furthermore, Twitter has encouraged the phenomenon of writing from one's own personal perspective and including information which does not seem to matter.

Twitter is discussed in this article as a means for businesses to share information with one another. It raves about it simplicity and straightforwardness of just using 140 characters to get a short and concise message across. It is a way for others to notice value in a company by the things said company posts. Although it boggling to being using, the lasting benefits from using Twitter outweigh sticking to the ‘old’ ways.

Though this article focus is on a mesh a different social media sites, it was interesting to read the perceptive on Twitter in the business world. It discussed how businesses can use twitter as a means to not only get their name out there to clients, but also how because Twitter can be updated immediately after hearing news, it allows businesses to one-up each other.

This article looks as social media – and Twitter – differently than others. It focuses more on the philosophy behind using Twitter as a means for companies to hire employees, whether it is ethical or not. It discusses the pros and cons of evaluation potential employees this way as well as giving employers guidance on how to use social media in a socially responsible manner.

This article discusses how social media is growing and changing the hiring process for many businesses. It establishes effective ways to begin networking as well as discussing how the old ways of recruiting potential employees are changing. Yet, it also discusses how social media cannot replace the personal connection or bond with a person. It instead creates an awareness that hopefully leads to a personal interaction.

This article discusses the pros of using a social networking site such as Twitter to grow you network. It discusses coming up with a strategic plan in order to use Twitter to its full capability: building lists, using it as a search engine, and retweeting others. As well as advice, this article gives statistics that actually prove the success of Twitter used for business purposes.