Twitter “ain’t all that”

A useful reminder that Twitter Should Not Be Your Only Communications Channel in organising and promoting events for the following reasons:

Firstly, not everyone is on Twitter. Wouldn’t have thought this point needed made, but apparently it does.

Secondly, not everyone follows the right people on Twitter. This applies doubly if you are organising an event and tweet details from your personal account and not some kind of event account. How vain are you to assume that everyone who matters to your event follows your personal account?

Thirdly, even if they do it’s very easy to miss a Tweet. If you don’t check Twitter regularly it’s easy to miss old Tweets, especially as they show new Tweets first.

And even if you do see a Tweet going past containing a fact you need to remember it’s to easy for it to slip past without you having recorded it, and next time you try to look for it it’s almost impossible to find. (eg “Where is tonight’s event? I know someone tweeted it last week but now I can’t find it!”)

Now we get on the two way communication part. Again, there’s nothing wrong with doing this – the problem comes if you only do this and make no other communication channels open.

Firstly, it’s 140 characters. You can’t discuss any details, or any points of finesse, or a complex situation. You just can’t. Communication is superficial.

Secondly, almost all communication is public and many people aren’t happy with that. Maybe the nature of their comment means they want to discuss it in private?

And lastly, remember that for large segments of the population, Twitter is not a safe spaceNot in the slightestReally not. If someone does not feel comfortable using Twitter, are you happy excluding them from your communications, remembering that they may already feel excluded from many other things already?

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