For this assignment, I had the opportunity to learn about how to live tweet at an event. I have never had an experience like this before and I had no idea what it was going to be like or how I would do with live tweeting. I chose to live tweet the Happy Holidays Laramie Festival of Trees for this project because I thought it would be an interesting event that would have enough I could live tweet about.
I already had a Twitter account before this assignment but I made a new one that was much more professional. In my new Twitter account, I had to address the different areas such as the bio and other aspects of the profile in a much more professional manner.
I approached my live tweeting assignment from a journalistic perspective. I made sure to not add my opinion during the entire time I was tweeting and tried to keep it focused on an observational lens instead of a promotional lens because the event was on its last day and the people who were attending were already there.
I enjoyed being able to focus on the important information or ideas that potentially would interest people who were unable to attend or would like to read about it later. I thought it was cool to focus on only looking at the critical details that I thought people would enjoy to see or hear about for the assignment.
What I didn’t enjoy about live tweeting was that I felt like I wasn’t able to live in the moment and focus on enjoying the event. I was so focused on what was happening and what would be good content to tweet about that I wasn’t able to sit and enjoy what I was seeing. I can definitely see that inability of being in the moment as a major disadvantage for people who’s career is to live tweet events.
I learned a lot about how to look for content that I thought people would enjoy. I would look for items or events that were standing out during the event and I was pretty quick at finding the impressionable things to tweet about.
If I was to live tweet this event again, I would definitely try to get in contact with the organizers of the event to get their perspective. I thought that I was missing a perspective from the organizers and I wanted to get some background info about how the event was put on and why it was set up the way it was.
I definitely see myself using social media in the future for whatever job I am in and I think it was very valuable to practice while I am still in school. I could see myself using social media as a way of promotion in a job that I work at in the future. I think a lot of companies now use social media as promotion and the area I want to go into, uses social media for that purpose.
I want to work in either local government someday or for a marketing or public relations firm. Both of these options heavily use social media and it is important for me to learn now about what I can and cannot do when managing social media instead of when I could lose my job for making a mistake.