Reflection on Twitter

My professor Gee Ekachai or better known as @FvrythingPR on Twitter introduced Twitter to our class at the start of the semester and required all her students to create an account (for those interested in following me I am @GoldenEaglesFan).

When Gee showed us and explained the concept of "tweeting" on Twitter, I thought it was pointless and stupid. I saw it as a lame version of Facebook with the status bar. However, after tweeting, following people and exploring Twitter for 3 months; I can see the benefits and its addiction.

For this assignment we were supposed to tweet at least twice a day during the month of March. We were also supposed to respond to other peoples' tweets. Gee also provided specific questions such as:

1. Number of tweets you did since March 1.
   
2. Content of your tweets in general. Were they about your thoughts, your wearabouts, your sharing of links, ect.?
   
3. Number of retweets.  Whose tweets did you retweet? What kind of topics did you retweet? Why did you retweet? 
   
4. Number of replies. In general, who did you reply to? What prompted you to reply? Were you asked a question or you wanted to add opinion?
   
5. How many people are you following? How many people are you following?
   
6. Your positive experience. Your most negative experience.
   
7. Did you benefit from being on twitter? If yes, how?
   

Answers/Reflection:

1. To be honest, I can't believe Gee actually made me count all my tweets during the month of March but I had around 150 tweets.
2. The content of my tweets were mainly around Marquette Basketball. Being March Madness do you expect anything different from me though? However, I also tweeted while we had guest speakers such as:
   
   • CD Vann, founder of SOHObiztube: @thatwoman_soho (twitter)
   • Steve Glynn, President of Spreenkler: @spreenkler (twitter)
   • Augie Ray, Experiential & Social Media Marketing Professional: @augieray (twitter)
   • Tannette Elie, Journalist for Milwaukee JS: @telie (twitter)
   • Al Krueger, founder of Comet Branding: @AlKrueger (twitter)
3.  I also tweeted about stories or videos I found and gave the link to view them. If others found something I liked I "retweeted" (RT) their post. However during the month of March I only RT seven times. Some of the things I RTed were from:
   

• Robyn Keuler, MU student: @Robyrd5 (twitter) - Topic: Marquette Bball (#mubb)
  
• Mary Schless, MU student: @gldneaglegrl (twitter) - Topics: #mubb and class
• Marquette University: @MarquetteU (twitter) - Topic: #mubb
• Marquette Athletics: @muathletics (twitter) - Topic: #mubb
• CrackedSidewalks: @CrackedSidewalks (twitter) - Topic: #mubb

Obviously, you tell that I AM A FANATIC about MARQUETTE BASKETBALL and love to read articles and tweets from journalists and fans. I also love watching videos from MU press conferences and thanks to Twitter I know where to go! CrackedSidewalks has everything I need!

4. As for replies; I replied around 60 times during the month of March. I mainly replied to tweets from classmates and professors that interested me. Again, my main interest in replies was sports. When some one commented on a game I saw and had a reaction, I responded. I also replied to people tweeting about their social life. Some people that I replied to included:

• Cara, MU student: @cmac42 (twitter) - Topics: social/life in general
• Sara Johnson, MU student: @SenoraBeeps (twitter) - Topics: social/jokes
• Gee Ekachai, MU professor: @FvrythingPR (twitter) - Topics: #mubb/social/jokes
  
• Linda Menck, MU professor: @digistorygal (twitter) - Topic: social/jokes
  
• Robyn Keuler, MU student: @Robyrd5 (twitter) - Topics: #mubb
  
• Mary Schless, MU student: @gldneaglegrl (twitter) - Topics: #mubb and class
• Rachel Ward, MU student: @RachelNWard (twitter) - Topics: #mubb

5. After 3 months on Twitter, I am now following 61 people with 86 followers.

6. My best experience with Twitter is being able to read comments form people watching the same game that I'm watching and simultaneously respond. However, I have had a negative aspect with Twitter and it is stupid people. Anyone can express themselves on Twitter and write whatever they want. I've had some people reply to my comments about #mubb who are have no clue what they are talking about and pretend like they know what's up.

7. That being said. My experience on Twitter has been very beneficial. Again, at first I thought it was stupid and pointless but after being a loyal participant, I think it's great. I am able to follow people with similar interests as me. I'm also able to follow my friends and respond to their thoughts and comments no matter where I am thanks to twitterberry!

Thanks GEE for introducing Twitter to me!