One Hundred Forty Characters – that is all an individual gets to make an impression on the Internet. If you are going to tweet, tweet effectively and consciously. From gathering information from others about how they use Twitter and reflecting on how I use Twitter, I have established a personal set of guidelines that I should attempt to follow before sending out a tweet. First, think of your audience – who will see this tweet and how will that individual or group of individuals be affected by it. Next, I like to contemplate about the worthiness of the tweet. I ask myself “Is this joke, link, etcetera something that others will appreciate or is it best that I keep this thought to myself?” Half of the time, I decide to scrap the tweet completely. I have found that I have been able to moderate my tweeting using this strategy of personal reflection. Just as one wouldn’t turn in an essay without revising it, one shouldn’t tweet in an unbridled fashion. My twitter goal is to create a profile that reveals part of my personality through quips, witty responses, social observations, and commentary on current events. However, I don’t want to reveal too much about myself. I’m not going to talk about what I ate for breakfast or what my mom and I talked about on the phone last night. Twitter is a revolutionary tool for interacting with celebrities, getting news, and communicating with friends. But remember, the conscious tweeter is the effective tweeter.

– Murph