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[sporadicpostbeliever]

TwitterBlazers

The Portland Trailblazers twitter community is made up of basketball fans, specifically those who love to support (or hate) the team. This demographic is largely men over the age of 25, and under the age of 55. Most of these users come from Oregon and Washington, but the community attracts interaction from users all over the world.

In my posts I aimed to attract attention through the current events that were going on in the NBA and Trailblazers. Specifically I reflected on Damian Lillard’s outstanding performance...

and the tragic passing of Kobe Bryant...

I was unsuccessful in receiving interaction on my account, but I was successful in learning a ton of information on the who/ what’s/ and why’s behind successful twitter activity.

Twitter is governed by pure chaos, which makes the platform addicting. Not only are common users attracted to the unpredictability of twitter, news outlets and corporations join in on these trends as well. The benefit of the unpredictability of twitter is that anyone can involve themselves by providing a unique or interesting take on current events. Businesses and marketers have observed spike in attention that comes with viral content, and have learned to produce content that capitalizes on viral trends as fast as possible. Sports play a large role in this because sports moments are commonly tokens of viral content, even captivating the attention of people who don’t care for sports.  

There are strategic steps that users take to capitalize on the face pace, viral nature of twitter. As fast as content on twitter is born, it dies off. With the nature of twitter being so fast paced, nothing on the platform is constant. One tweet, meme, or article will have its time in the spotlight, and twitter is quick to dissect every inch of it before tossing it into the pile of all the other over-shared memes. This means that those on the app need to be attentive, reactive, and insightful. Paying attention to twitter activity and popular trends is crucial to get on top of the attraction that they bring. Next comes being reactive; this means to know exactly how to respond in a way that will gain even more attention than the original content. Finally, being insightful; this can be done through unique takes, controversial opinions, or complementary information.

What drives the viral nature of twitter? 

The twitter user social media group values quick, information, and interesting information and perspectives. This is a network that does not want to spend a lot of time reading and digesting information; they want their information concise and clear. To attract attention and responses on twitter it is crucial to use information that is controversial, and will stir up opinions from multiple viewpoints. Those who have mastered the ability to provoke interest on twitter will have endless replies to their tweets that are filled with responses, corrections, or contradictions to their content.

The Portland Trailblazer community specifically loves to agree about the physical ability and talents of the players on the Blazers and opposing teams. Further, this community will react to the outside lives, clothing, and behavior of the players, even though none of these aspects have to do with basketball.

The goal of this community is to share the various opinions, perspectives, and responses to current events and topics. Twitter is full of comedy, personal posts, and meaningless pieces of information, but content that is shared the most reflects on the events that are taking place in the world. With all news stations, media outlets, and corporations being on twitter, people no longer turn on the TV to find the news. Local, national, and international news is updated and regurgitated faster than ever through twitter, shortening the attention span of everyone on social media.

This community loves to come together to celebrate the victories of the team. Some of the most notable twitter moments have surrounded the star player Damian Lillard. Damian is known to sink three point shots - most famously during crunch time. One of the most notable moments in the Trailblazer twitter community was when Damian made a three point buzzer beater, from nearly half court. Not only did his shot win the Trailblazers the game against Oklahoma, it won them the series, advancing the team to the Western Conference Semifinals, amazing right? Not exactly. In true twitter fashion, fans from both the team and opposing teams came together to argue that the shot was “too risky” and he had gotten “lucky”. This stirred the entire twitter network, causing tweeters and professional alike to argue both sides of the game winning shot. However, negativity was not the main response to this sports moment. The official Trailblazer account, ESPN, Complex, GQ and other major media outlets tweeted out videos of this shot, using various songs, speeds, and angles to emphasize this outstanding moment.

This moment is a prime illustration of the purpose that users have given twitters. The days of waiting for the morning paper to read professional analys are over. Twitter has made it so that as soon as something noteworthy happens, the internet has seen it, eaten it up, and spit it out with the opinions from every angle.

The unspoken rules of twitter, that people have caught on to, are to seek out and expose any users that are spreading offensive or oppressive messages. This is important to recognize because it is a form of regulation for the chaos that takes place on twitter. While the speed and content of twitter is fast and unpredictable, the general unspoken rule is that users should be accepting of all types of people. Gender, race, orientation and other differentiating factors should not be used as means for bringing people down, and users regulate this internally. If people are found to be discriminating, twitter users are quick to go viral by exposing them.

So how did my twitter experience unfold? 

Unfortunately my twitter account gained almost no attention, and I am not surprised. Most users who attract conversation through their large, established following. People are much more inclined to take part in a conversation with a person that has a large following, because it will attract more attention. Unless the user is sharing something extremely unique, interesting, or controversial, not many people will engage with a twitter user that does not have many followers.

The twitter community loves to feed off of users with large followings. These interactions can be both positive and negative, regardless, people share their opinions and feedback with popular twitter users. By not having the following, or particularly controversial opinions, I was not able to gain much traction on my account. If this assignment was over a longer period of time, and required more interaction, I may have been more successful in getting more responses on my posts.

Through the posts, and observing others, I noticed that the people who go “viral” are usually first to have a good take on an event or headline. Finding the generally, popular - unpopular opinion is another great way to gain attention. By this I mean that twitter uses will commonly state something that might be deemed an “unpopular opinion”, but ends up being agreed upon by lots of users.

Another way that I could have been more successful is by being super interactive. Tweeting daily, or multiple times daily, tagging and responding to other accounts, and following lots of accounts would have created more momentum on my profile. Further, I could have leveraged the fact that I am a girl getting involved in a community that is majority men. This would have helped my content because it would allow me to provide a perspective that is not as frequently shared in sports discussions.

Getting involved in this community during the NBA Playoffs is another great way to receive more interaction. During this time of the year the twitter community is extremely interactive because users are heavily invested in the outcome of the seasons. Many more users spend time on twitter looking at game results, predictions, and feedback on teams and players.

Overall, I was not successful in gaining interaction on my account, but I was successful in learning the patterns of the NBA community on twitter. Going forward I can leverage my knowledge in professional and personal settings. I can also use the information I gained from observing the twitter community in my Business Major, because it is a great way for tracking the behavior of twitter users. This can be leveraged to know when to purchase ad space, who to target these ads to, and what content to put on these ads.

https://www.gq.com/story/damian-lillard-buzzer-beater

https://www.complex.com/sports/2019/04/damian-lillard-game-winner-against-thunder-memes