To Tweet or Not to Tweet?

[US71]

I am debating joining the Twitterverse, but am still undecided.

Any tweeters have comments, concerns, horror stories?

Doubtful I would tweet more than a few times a week unless I'm on the road (hoping to log a few miles this Summer).

I'm already on Facebook and Instagram...is Twitter that necessary?

[TheHighwayMan3561]

I think Twitter is more useful for discovering/following journalistic content and not so much for interacting with other people, unless you're into real-time events like sports or entertainment media. I have had no horror stories in 7 years of having a Twitter account; just ignore the occasional porn bots that interact with accounts (these are easy to pick out) and you'll be fine.

[Rothman]

I'm not on Twitter and have never felt like I missed anything.

[english si]

Content on twitter is very much
1) The chattering classes
2) Businesses' marketing departments
3) Teenagers who post stuff to other teenagers that no one else on twitter understands or interacts with.

British twitter trends tend to be:
- some news topic (eg disaster somewhere)
- something political
- whatever sporting event is live/just finished
- a popular TV show while airing / a little bit afterwards
- some cryptic thing that turns out to be an album dropping (abandon hope, for this is the teenagers talking) - formerly was obvious as simply #OneDirection

[Takumi]

I'm only on Instagram. Not even Facebook anymore.

[vdeane]

I can't say I understand what the point of Twitter is.  Honestly, Facebook and Google+ are the only two that I really understand.  Guess I'm a luddite...

[Jim]

I find Twitter to be a great way to follow sporting events, especially sports like college hockey that don't get the big media attention, but which do have a loyal following and some media coverage.  I also find it a good way to follow breaking weather events (severe weather reports in real time) and even "breaking" traffic situations.

Twitter's been my only real entry into social media.  I've chosen to stay off of Facebook.  I'm on Google Plus, but I am not sure anyone else is, since nothing ever seems to happen there.  I have an Instagram account but never do anything with it.  But I check Twitter fairly regularly and tweet things (likely of little interest to most) occasionally.

[renegade]

Not to tweet.

[Zeffy]

I don't use any social media. That being said, I think Twitter is only useful for certain things, like sports and/or site updates (like AARoads' Twitter). Other than that, just like the rest of social media, I don't see a point to it.

[Pete from Boston]

I have tried to use twitter, but if you follow more than a few people/organizations, you end up with an unmanageable amount of crap to sift through.  The signal-to-noise ratio is so extreme that I rarely open the app.

Instagram is a lot of fun because it's simple and easy to explore, and showcases a lot of creativity (as long as you look beyond the youngsters with 85578 photos apiece).

I still remain on the "stay off" side of Facebook.  That could change for networking reasons, but not for now.

[CNGL-Leudimin]

British twitter trends tend to be:
- some news topic (eg disaster somewhere)
- something political
- whatever sporting event is live/just finished
- a popular TV show while airing / a little bit afterwards
- some cryptic thing that turns out to be an album dropping (abandon hope, for this is the teenagers talking) - formerly was obvious as simply #OneDirection

Change 'British' to 'Spanish', and you get the same.

I can't say I understand what the point of Twitter is.  Honestly, Facebook and Google+ are the only two that I really understand.  Guess I'm a luddite...

For me it's completely the opposite. I don't understand Fakebook, but I enjoy Twitter. However, today being Rare Disease day I've renamed myself as one of them.

[bing101]

I am debating joining the Twitterverse, but am still undecided.

Any tweeters have comments, concerns, horror stories?

Doubtful I would tweet more than a few times a week unless I'm on the road (hoping to log a few miles this Summer).

I'm already on Facebook and Instagram...is Twitter that necessary?

Twitter I always here about Politicians and Troll Statements when Twitter is at play here.

[hbelkins]

When AASHTO's Subcommittee on Transportation Communications (TransComm) surveyed the country's DOTs, most of them reported Twitter as being their most useful and most-heavily-used social media platform. Which is the exact opposite of my experience. The Facebook account I manage has 5,221 likes while the Twitter account I manage has only 1,230 followers. These numbers are considered to be excellent for a rural highway district with no major metropolitan areas.

Personally, I know more people who use Facebook than Twitter. I have a Twitter account, but I rarely use it. It's been my experience that Twitter is better for one-way communication, while Facebook tends to start arguments heated discussions. Also, given my background as a journalist, I find 140 characters to be pretty limiting.

I'd recommend Twitter for following media outlets/reporters and DOTs in which you're interested.

[formulanone]

Twitter has that weird way of making you think you're talking to yourself and thinking it makes a difference. For example...nobody really cares that you don't like something, but that's some peoples' lives. And why should any particular stranger care about another stranger's trending topic? There's lots of negative, self-loathing types, and some that ought to have a filter, but you can find that anywhere...you can block them.

That said, there's some interesting stuff; following people with similar likes makes a difference. Some folks are just funny or insightful, and others are quite down-to-earth. As said before, some days have more crud than usual, sometimes you get gold. There's definitely an element of hit-or-miss experimentation.

I'm kind of in the read-only camp...I don't have much time for it. The ads on mobile devices are now difficult to get around (which means it's working, I guess).

[US71]

I'd recommend Twitter for following media outlets/reporters and DOTs in which you're interested.

That is the direction I'm starting to lean towards: following AHTD, MODOT, and a few others.

[Pete from Boston]

Twitter has that weird way of making you think you're talking to yourself and thinking it makes a difference. For example...nobody really cares that you don't like something, but that's some peoples' lives.

Vanity posting.  This is all teenagers seem to do, and what a lot of adults do, and I just don't need a lot of it in my life. 

I have come around a bit on fluff posts from people I like or miss, because this keeps them in my life, but there is a limit to what benefits others, and one ought to keep in mind the mark one is making.

As for DOTs, the local transportation agencies are very often cited to me as popular reasons to use twitter.  It is indeed a very fast, centralized way to get sudden info out. 

[hbelkins]

As for DOTs, the local transportation agencies are very often cited to me as popular reasons to use twitter.  It is indeed a very fast, centralized way to get sudden info out.

I'm stating the obvious when I say that communication methods have changed greatly over the past decade. When I started my current job, I was basically expected to send out press releases and take questions from reporters who had additional questions about the releases, or were inquiring about some other news story. When I was in the community newspaper field, email was just becoming widespread. Press releases had only recently transitioned from being mailed to being faxed. If I got a press release on a Thursday or Friday, I could set it aside and do the story on Monday for publication on Wednesday or Thursday in a weekly paper.

Even weeklies are now hosting websites with updated content. A few years ago, I sent out a press release on a Thursday or Friday about a bridge with a lowered weight limit. I got a call from a reporter in that community to ask a couple of additional questions a few minutes later, whereas I might have waited until Monday to make the call. Within an hour, a story was on that paper's site with a photo of the newly-installed weight limit sign.

Now, weekly papers are on social media and frequently share or retweet our posts.