For this online journal blog post, the two organisations I will compare and contrast will be the Australian Library and Information Association (ALIA) and the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA).

Twitter is a microblogging social media platform that allows people to stay connected through quick, frequent messages (Twitter Inc., 2022). Both ALIA and ACARA have an active Twitter presence, being members for over a decade. Both organisations have over ten thousand followers, and both organisations regularly engage with these followers through posts.

At first glance, ACARA’s Twitter posts come across as more formal. The posts seem to inform their followers of best practices in teaching, policy and procedure updates and professional learning opportunities. While ALIA’s posts inform their followers, their Twitter feed also contains more entertaining posts about school libraries and events. It is no surprise that ACARA’s posts relate to all curriculum areas while ALIA’s posts primarily focus on school libraries and teacher librarians.

Both organisations actively retweet other organisations. ALIA’s Twitter site regularly retweets many local and national organisations, such as small public libraries to large book publishing companies. There is a wide range of information provided by these retweets, and by retweeting smaller, local organisations, I found myself interested in visiting these organisations’ Twitter sites for further details. ACARA actively retweet, although their retweets are mainly focused on professional communities, such as the eSafety Commissioner and Education Services Australia. If looking for a specific policy or a large organisation’s view, I would visit the ACARA Twitter site to assist in locating that organisation.

Both Twitter sites do appear to be successful in their engagement and purpose. This is first seen through their number of followers, likes, and retweets. Krishankumar (2018) and Chen (2021) highlight that by tracking these high numbers of statistics, we can infer that Twitter sites successfully reach their followers. Furthermore, both Twitter sites are recommended by various educational professionals. This is a positive sign that both Twitter sites are successful, engaging and informative.

After viewing both Twitter sites, I have found them engaging and have decided to follow them. I appreciate the short nature of the posts and the regularity of each post.

References

Chen, J. (2021, September 14). Twitter metrics: How and why you should track them. https://sproutsocial.com/insights/twitter-metrics/

Krishankumar. (2018, January 13). 8 ways to measure the success of your Twitter campaign. https://blog.eduonix.com/marketing/8-ways-measure-success-twitter-campaign/

Twitter Inc. (2022). Tweeting. https://help.twitter.com/en/resources/new-user-faq