By Dave Andrusko
In just the past few years, the number of people using Twitter has increased exponentially. Where once we used this powerful informational aggregator to pass on the mundane details of our daily lives, now it has become indispensable source of information.
https://twitter.com/nrlc now has over 68,000 followers! Compound that by the number of people our 68,000 follower forward information to and you have (has they say) a real force multiplier. We use this platform to send stories, many of which originate right here in the NRLC office, to grassroots pro-lifers, journalists, and curious observers.
Twitter originated as a status update platform, meaning people already familiar with other social networking sites (such as Facebook) could use it to tell other people what they were up to–and that’s about it.
Twitter was meant to be a stripped-down version of the status updates, allowing users to express themselves as they would on other sites, but in a highly abbreviated form: a maximum of 140 characters. Another way to look at it is micro-blogging–condensing an entire blog entry into a sentence.
This experiment in communication got a boost from exposure by media and celebrities alike and people signed up by the millions. Twitter experienced a particular spike in late 2009. Twitter received a gigantic boost in 2017 when it doubled the number of character allowed—to 280.
A great number of users had learned to hone this technology to their advantage. Among those who understood the real potential of Twitter is National Right to Life. You can join in at http://twitter.com/nrlc.
Among the greatest advantages of the Twitter platform is the immediacy of publication, the open channel to a tremendous variety of audiences, and the way it builds a community around a common interest. NRLC is able to publish unique news articles, press releases, and thoughts in a way that can be easily searched for and shared, keeping connected grassroots pro-lifers updated and exposing new audiences to good information on life issues.
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