INF506 Module 3- OLJ Task 4: Twitter feeds

OLJ Task 4: Twitter feeds

Explore two of the Twitter feeds listed above. Write a post for your OLJ of around 400 words that includes the following:

Compare and contrast the Twitter presence of the two organisations. What type of content do the organisations tweet (and retweet)? What audience are they appealing to? Do they appear to be successful? Analyse why or why not.

Word count: 373

• UNESCO
  3. 1 million followers
  4. Share own videos using own hashtag #unescoGC
  5. Posting their own campaigns, #WorldHeritage events and human interest stories
  6. Uses retweets
  7. Audience: general public, activists, potential donors/volunteers
• ALIA National- Australian Library and Information Association
  10. 8 thousand followers
  11. Shares images and surveys
  12. Posting about different literary events and days using various hashtags and links to other organisations websites
  13. Does not usually retweet
  14. Audience: library and information professionals

I would have to say in terms of getting and holding attention, I think UNESCO is more successful than ALIA National, simply because they want people to take action on the things they are presenting so they have used various forms of media on their Twitter feed to engage the short attention span of most people. On the other hand, ALIA National are targeting professionals already working in the industry, not trying to continually entice a new audience, and providing these professionals with opportunities to engage in different programs related to their department.

I think most people would feel UNESCO’s feed is more interesting because of the amount of videos and positive images they have used to bring peoples attention to issues and injustices. By varying their media, they are catering to all kinds of people with various interests and skills. ALIA is more cut and dry, less interactive because it is catering, specifically to the professionals and leading them away from Twitter to gather information.

Additionally, ALIA uses more technical jargon than UNESCO, whose language is targeted toward the general public. In order to engage with some of the ALIA posts, you would have to be aware of or working within the industry whereas UNESCO’s less formal approach could be found to be more appealing to the wider public.

While both accounts use hashtags to group and link their posts, UNESCO reuses their hashtag to make the audience familiar with them, specifically, while ALIA posts different hashtags for each post, I am assuming related to the posts, without any of their own presence represented. By adding their own hashtag to things, other could retweet, not only using the @ function, but also the shorter hashtag, allowing them to potentially trend more regularly.