Written By: Justin Link, Webmaster

“Why do I need to join Thefacebook? I already have a Myspace page.” (For those of you younger than I, and I’m not that old, there used to be a “the” in the Facebook domain name. Try it out, and it will redirect you to facebook.com) Famous last words. It was 2005, my last year at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, and I was divided over adding another, seemingly superfluous social media account to my portfolio. Why would I need two? What does one do that the other doesn’t? (more on that later) In hindsight, it’s a good thing I signed up; we all know what happened to Myspace.

As of January 2016, I’ve been a member of Facebook for 11 years, way back when you needed a .edu email account to sign up. I use it almost daily to keep up with people I’ve known forever, people I’ve known for 10 years, and people I’ve just met. Social media is all about connecting, and staying connected, in ways most of us never dreamed or now take for granted. It enables people, companies, and governments to connect with each other in ways they never did or could. It’s both personal (on our devices, in our pockets) and impersonal (because it’s no longer face-to-face or voice-to-voice). Above all, it’s easy.

And now that we’ve arrived in 2016, some of you (including me) may still be asking yourself “What do I need with a Twitter account?” It’s the same reason you probably have both a Facebook and a LinkedIn account: to connect differently with different people. We connect professionally with “connections” on LinkedIn, personally with friends on Facebook, and quickly with followers on twitter.

So what’s the difference between Twitter and the rest? While they’re all considered “push media”, where the content is “pushed” to you by way of notifications or email, Tweets are delivered as bite-size morsels of quick consumption that get the message across quickly and sometimes broadly. “Like” what you see? Retweet it to your followers. If one of your followers, or your follower’s follower has thousands of followers, your message could be retweeted to tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, or even millions. This is unlike (pun definitely intended) Facebook or LinkedIn, where messages are often restricted to your friends or connections in the interest of privacy, unless shared publicly.

The intent of the @Western_ITE Twitter account is not to go viral. While exposure is great and, as the old saying goes, any publicity is good publicity, there are ways of going about Twitter and social media professionally. After all, we are a professional organization. We don’t follow thousands of people, and our tweets are (mostly) in good taste. We don’t always need to be serious, but we definitely don’t want to be vulgar. The underlying idea is to connect and engage our members by delivering events, ideas, and some laughs in new and innovative ways that emails and printed media cannot. Sort of “filling in the blanks”.

In the future, you’ll see our President and our International Directors tweeting, and tweeting back at @Western_ITE to give you the news from places our webmaster can’t be. As we aim to increase our public presence, we will be using Twitter and other social media avenues to engage our members by staying relevant, staying connected, and not turning into Myspace.

Now, what do I need with an Instagram?