ABSTRACT
Microblogs, such as tweets and Facebook status updates, help organizations and individuals maintain ongoing, productive conversations with key publics. Clearly, microblogs are for communicating and building relationships. Traditional publics for microblogs and status updates include any groups or individuals that possess desirable resources: customers, employees, stockholders, voters and more. Publics for microblogs and status updates, however, generally are self-selecting. Most organizations, therefore, use many forms of media, including their websites, to encourage people to follow them on Twitter, Facebook and other social media platforms. Profile photos or icons usually accompany and identify Facebook status updates and tweets. In addition to profile images and brief written messages, status updates and tweets often include an attention-grabbing photo, video, GIF or link image. Because of the increasing popularity of microblogs and similar media, several services have emerged that permit users to coordinate posts to many social networks..
