A discussion into how COVID-19 updates have impacted microblogging, with my own reflections. Is microblogging the way forward for contemporary journalism?
In the times of COVID-19 and the current global pandemic, quick news updates of the on-going situation have become of paramount importance. This is where microblogging comes in, as microblogging focuses on posting updates, ideas or quick notifications. Microblogging is a relatively new form of communication that allows users to describe their current status in short posts over the web, and mainly on Twitter, which has seen a lot of growth since its 2006 launch. For example, below is a screenshot of a tweet that I spotted over on my Twitter, from BBC News, using their Twitter account to post a quick update about the tier systems in England:
This tweet alone received over 1000 retweets and 2000 replies from Twitter users seeking more information, which relates to Javas (2007) subdivisions of microblogging types: information sharing, information seeking and friendship-wise relationship. In the above screenshot from BBC News, we can see that BBC are sharing information, which is of particular importance in the current COVID-19 situation. This relates to a few of the advantages of microblogging, as suggested by this blog, which are that microblogging is suitable for emergency time information, direct communication and the reachability of a larger audience. From looking at the interaction of that tweet, I started to think about how many of us rely on microblogging on outlets such as Twitter for current news updates?
Out of curiousity, I conducted a poll over on Twitter to see where users mostly get their news updates from, essentially putting social media against traditional news outlets:
As we can see, 66% of people use a combination of social media and traditional media news outlets, with a third of people using social media mainly to seek and share information. What’s interesting is that, based on the results of the poll, no-one primarily relies on online newspapers or televised news. Could this show that the advantages of microblogging could be greater than that of traditional media outlets?
Personal Reflection
When considering the importance of microblogging in contemporary journalism, I decided to reflect on how I’ve used microblogging, in regards to both publishing my own updates and reading other peoples. To support the poll I conducted, personally I turn to Twitter and social media mainly to see recent news updates in most situations, as it is a form of direct communication and updates are published in real time, compared to traditional new channels who have to wait to report on breaking news. Especially over the recent lockdowns, I found updates from accounts such as BBC News very reliable, which relates to how BBC News was the most trusted news source in 2020.
Furthermore, I used microblogging myself over on Twitter to interact with followers, but also share and comment on information. According to Jojonomic, in order for microblogging to be successful, content needs to be interesting and also encouraging for other users to respond.
I found that conducting polls on twitter was a good way to not only gather information, but also connect with the audience in a friendship-wise way. It provided a space for audience participation, which enhances trust and loyalty. Furthermore, I also found that regular tweeting and updates would encourage audience interaction more, and enhance brand awareness. As you can see from the screenshot below of my Twitter analytics, over the past 28 days of being active and consistent, I have earned 4,800 impressions, which demonstrates user interactions with my tweets.
If a small account like mine can have that reachability, it is of no surprise that microblogging has grown in popularity since Twitters creation in 2016 and is used by the likes of BBC News for emergency time information. Imagine how quickly breaking news could spread by using the right hashtag or tagging the right people?
COVID-19 has used time sensitive information as the perfect test for microblogging usability, and I would be very interested into seeing the analytics for BBC News Twitter during the reporting of COVID-19. Overall, I would say that they are definitely more opportunities for reachability with microblogging compared to traditional new platforms, and successful microblogging with interesting information and regular engagement could increase audience interaction and engagement, which would hence improve user trust and loyalty between user and brand. This leads to the question, will the effectiveness and suitability of microblogging take over traditional media outlets? Slowly but surely, will we start to rely on microblogging on social media for our news updates?
