Campus Safety Services parking coordinator Patti Taylor checked out her Twitter account for the first time Tuesday afternoon. The only problem was the account, @ParkingPatti, isn’t hers.
“I wonder who set it up,” Taylor said about the webpage, which pokes fun at her job. “I think it’s fabulous […] At least they’re using it in a good manner.”
Twitter is a social networking site where users “tweet” their information in posts of 140 characters or less. Users can choose to “follow” other accounts based on their interests and information they want to receive. In their posts, users can also use hashtags, with the pound symbol, to start trending a topic.
John Carfagno, the University’s assistant vice president for Integrated Marketing and Communications, says his office, which manages @JohnCarrollU, tweets when it finds something buzzworthy to share with their followers.
“We see other colleges and universities flooding people with their main social media accounts, and we don’t want to make people think we’re spamming them,” Carfagno said. “We also retweet interesting things that people post about Carroll.”
Usually the tweets from @JohnCarrollU include events and happenings on campus, and other potential tweet topics are discussed in Integrated Marketing and Communications team meetings.
“It’s not always the ‘super official’ news. We can use a more casual voice on social media than we use on the jcu.edu website,” Carfagno said via email. “Sometimes it can be a shoutout to an alum like London Fletcher for being in the Pro Bowl, or something like that. The audience on Twitter is very diverse – there are current students, but also lots of alumni (near and far) and other universities, etc.”
Sara Stashower, a professor in the Tim Russert Department of Communication and Theatre Arts, is teaching a course this semester on social media. She said companies use Twitter to create a one-on-one relationship with consumers that use their product or service.
“It does allow people to feel invested or attached,” Stashower said.
Not only do companies and marketing professionals substantially use Twitter, but journalists and the news media do as well.
For JCU alumnus Andrew Rafferty, Twitter has a much more pragmatic application. Rafferty, who formerly served as editor in chief of The Carroll News, is an embedded reporter for NBC News on the campaign trail with presidential candidate Rick Santorum.
“Twitter is a way to quickly and easily market not only your work but yourself,” said Rafferty.
Although his Twitter profile clearly states, “Links and retweets aren’t endorsements. Opinions are my own,” he maintains that it is a great way to gain clout in the professional world.
“If I tweet a lot about Rick Santorum [people notice this],” Rafferty said. And eventually Rafferty hopes people will see him as an informed voice for that subject.
Rafferty also said that it helps build a strong professional network since it provides “exposure to people you wouldn’t otherwise meet in person, [because it’s a way] to quickly and easily promote yourself.”
Along with the professional uses of Twitter, many students have Twitter accounts to share information about themselves or follow other users that tweet information they [tweets] want to know about.
Sophomore Caroline Kapela uses her Twitter account for social purposes.
“I have a Twitter so I can stay in contact with my John Carroll cross country friends and so I can read funny things,” she said. “I like to have a nice laugh, and they uplift my mood.”
Some users have even created anonymous Twitter names associated with the University, such as @jcuSQUIRREL, poking fun at the abundance of squirrels on campus. The user writes in their bio space, “I like to run around campus and munch on leaves and chase people.”
One of @jcuSQUIRREL’s tweets from Feb. 5 reads, “Today is international kissing day. So kiss a squirrel and possibly get rabies. #lovesquirrels.”
Another anonymous Twitter account is @JCUprobz, in which the user comically tweets about problems on campus. “Put clothes in dryer, wait 45 minutes, check, still wet. #JCUprobz,” reads one of the user’s tweets from Nov. 30.
Senior Jake Smith uses his Twitter to stay connected with his friends. He also follows
@JCUprobz and another anonymous account,
@hipsterproblems.
“Most of the time, there’s a lot of stuff that they tweet that I can relate to,” said Smith. “It’s funny to see other people say something and think, ‘I know that feeling.’”
Two anonymous Twitter accounts make fun of JCU’s Greek life: @JCU_FratStar and @JCU_Sorostitute.
“I’m kind of obsessed with myself,” tweeted @JCU_Sorostitute on Feb. 4.
On Jan. 31, @JCU_FratStar tweeted, “If I used all of the money I spent on chapter dues, on alcohol … I’d be dead #richkidproblems.”
Stashower said the anonymous Twitter accounts provide users a way to tweet freely and not be identified.
“What I think students don’t understand – and they don’t understand this about Facebook either, it’s the same thing – is that once it’s out in the ether, it’s there and it’s permanent,” she said. “You need to conduct yourself virtually the same way you would in reality […] You shouldn’t say anything by tweet, Facebook, blog [or] post that you wouldn’t say to someone face-to-face.”
Stashower also believes that posting something without thinking about it hurts the user.
“It’s like, I think, therefore it is. I’m getting off my desk, I’m getting it out of my dorm room [or] I’m getting it out of the bar on Coventry. I think it for a second [and] I don’t consider it. I don’t let things gestate, I don’t let them develop,” she said. “We are so fast and furious about everything we do, and that’s because the channels, the mediums are so fast. But that doesn’t mean that the thought process should be or is equally as fast, and it doesn’t mean that we’re really thinking through any consequences.”
