Blog 1 for Journalism.

Think back to when you were first heard about the social networking website “Twitter”. What’d you think about it when it was described to you? Did you think it’d be more than just another internet phenomenon that’d pass, or did you think the social site had sticking power? Let’s be honest, you probably thought it was a stupid, conceited idea that’d lose steam fast, but you ended up making an account because you needed to see what all the hullabaloo was. Maybe you ended up following the right accounts and got sucked in; but you were most likely pretty unimpressed and would forget about your account only to revisit it in a month.

Twitter has been around for six years and their user-ship has been steadily growing the entire time. Twitter has succeeded to become a staple on most smartphones and bookmark bars despite having the key ingredients of most internet fads; but how? I came up with a list of things that I truly believe are to credit for Twitter’s survival.

However, the reasons would have little meaning of twitter’s longevity if they stood alone. No: beneath each of the site’s characteristics lies something called “great timing”.  Drawn in from every new update, popular international event, or by Twitter’s unintentional prevalence in other media platforms, new users come to the site in precisely calculated waves. This, more than anything, gloriously emancipated this social network from its certain damnation.

Steady amounts of people exposed to and learning ways to use Twitter gave way to a revolutionary new keyword system that would make commentary and conversation much easier across the entire world wide web, and subsequently, would redefine the (#) symbol: I’m talking about hashtags.

We consume many different categories of media, with TV and internet being the platforms with the most diverse and specialized channels. Recently, television programs have embraced the hashtag as a means of communicating with viewers, but more importantly, to have you advertise for them by means of your followers.

TV Shows and other televised events that use hashtags will usually involve the title or other applicable witty phrase. There are no spaces and the words are preceded by the pound symbol. (#Debate2012, #MythBusters.)

Twitter’s hashtag system has a funny, more personal side as well. Out of the ten top trending keywords and hash tags, typically there are a few that aren’t ad related.

For example, the top two trending hashtags in the Minneapolis area right now are “#ToMyFutureSon” and “#IWishMyCarHad”. Hashtags like these act as quirky writing prompts for those that want to post, and offer solid entertainment value for the followers of that writer.

Though followers seek entertainment, they can also choose to be informed by following national and local news stations and often participate in the station’s gathering of news. Twitter’s journalist users use the site like a vertical news marquee, posting headlines to articles or clips of newscasts along with a corresponding link. They can also pose questions to their followers and almost effortlessly attain quotable material from the public.

There are many reasons, but these three have contributed to the longevity of the site as well as change how we use other social networking. The accommodations made by Twitter for advertisers, coupled with the no-pressure nature of the “Tweeters” that use the predisposed hashtags are one aspect of it’s success as a marketing tool.

The hashtags written from the heart, however, make up a big part of why Tweeters will stay engaged and interested in the site because these prompts serve as the important bond of entertainment between the Tweeter & their followers.

Twitter has provided news outlets with a way to break stories on a huge scale as well as compose stories easily.

It’s not the Britney Spears or Justin Beiber that keeps tweeters tweeting, but the participation level, the entertainment value, and the efficiently posted information that will keep Twitter on top of the social networking game.