Twitter Project Experience

Social media in general has been a new form of communication for over ten years. Focusing specifically on Twitter, this media platform has been used for many things. As a personal user of Twitter I have seen the platform be used for Entrepreneurship and News. In Entrepreneurship I’ve seen people’s careers and businesses grow and flourish to where people are only 17 and 18 and are making millions due to using a Twitter platform because it’s a better way to communicate in this day and age. Reading the articles you see how Twitter built communication around these instances to let the world know what was going on, because in all reality many of us do not watch the news anymore. Politics is another topic that we see on Twitter often, I would say my generation figures out what’s going on in the world more on Twitter than in real life. For example the midterm election that just passed, If it wasn’t for Twitter and the celebrities, voting pages, beauty pages, music pages (etc.) elaborating on WHY we should vote, why is was so important and the benefits of voting, we probably wouldn’t have had an increase in young adult voters. Young adults voting this past election had a 31% youth turnout which is the highest it has been in twenty five years, and I know if it wasn’t for social media that would not have happened. Social media platforms apply that pressure to us young adults because It’s the only way to get our attention. Stated earlier It’s a fact that the millennial generation does not watch the news that often as we probably should, that’s what we pretty much use social media for it too. With all these devastating tragedies such as mass shootings, fires and kidnappings I usually never hear about them until I actually go on Twitter. This past week there was a mass shooting in Thousand Oaks, California that left twelve people dead, as a college student who doesn’t watch the news I figured out what was going on through Twitter because everyone was posting and retweeting about it which led me to then search up on CNN what was going on. Back in February there was a school shooting in Parkland, Florida that left seventeen students and staff members dead, Twitter actually had videos of the actual shootings in the school which were uploaded by students themselves and it was honestly so gruesome and terrifying that I couldn’t watch it again because it made me worry so much for where this country is headed. Yet again if it wasn’t for twitter I would have never known what was going on and could have not passed down the information to my friends in school. A natural disaster named hurricane Florence hit in September 2018 that effected a lot states and cities. Twitter had people posting about hurricane relief and videos of how the hurricane was effecting their own personal cities. The hurricane hit North Carolina and that hit home for me due to having close family out there which caused me to reach out to them and make sure they were safe. Twitter was a success in communicating all of these events because the platform provided facts, videos and even after it provided awareness which is very important in dealing with tragedies. The topics I chose to follow on my page were KKWBeauty (Kim Kardashian West Beauty), Fenty Beauty and Karen Civil. These topics brought interest to me because I wanted to compare colorism In the beauty industry and how representation matters. Fenty Beauty is known for having a wide range of shades and colors to fit any woman whether you’re light, brown, dark or even an in between shade of those. Also Fenty beauty was created by the queen herself, Rihanna who is a role model in the music, beauty and fashion industry to young girls especially young colored girls, she’s just an overall great inspiration. Rihanna’s beauty line has also been known to represent every type of woman in her campaigns no matter what shade, shape or size they are. While on the other hand you have Kim Kardashian West Beauty that barely represents women of color, on her end that is a shame due to her having mixed children and being so influenced by Black culture. The Kardashian family has based their whole lives on Black culture from how they look to how they dress to what they sell in their clothing brand. KKWBeauty does not have a wide range of shades and colors nor does it use different types of women in their campaigns which causes a great number of Black people to not be comfortable enough to buy the products. With these two beauty brands I kind of wanted to make a comparison of their marketing skills. Karen Civil is someone I followed because she is a social media and digital media marketing strategist which is what I wish to due with my degree when I get out of college. Also, I chose to follow her because she is African American and posts influential colored women on her platforms. The Twitter experience was different from plain old blogging because it was easier for me due to me being a millennial and growing up on social media. Twitter is something I use throughout my everyday life and I use it constantly, it’s actually my favorite social media outlet. It was much easier to keep things in a condensed form by keeping our posts to a minimum of one hundred forty characters to a maximum of two hundred and eighty which is a piece of cake. Posting on Twitter is something that comes so easy, while on the other hand blogging is kind of foreign to most of us millennials because a great number of us have never blogged because it seems way to complicated, I know that’s my personal issue with blogging. Another problem I have with blogging is that writing is too much, us millennials love short easy work. Twitter is such a simple outlet in expressing yourself.