Congrats Twitter! Well Sort of...

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I have a love/hate relationship with social media. I have accounts on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. Each of these accounts is used for various purposes, but primarily to identify business leads and to promote the work I am engaged in to generate additional business leads. I use these sites for social purposes as well, but as an entrepreneur outside of the United States, my work online is intended to research or locate opportunities where I can share my videos, photos, and other representations of my services. I love that social media platforms provide a way to remain and get connected to other people, but I hate their ability to lure you in and consume your time.

On occasion, well more frequently than I would like to admit, I sign-in to one of my accounts with the goal of posting a quick picture or video link. Then, I see a story or picture that peaks my interest, and the scrolling begins. Before I know it, a task that should've taken five minutes takes one hour. Each of my social media accounts can draw me in and take more of my time than desired, except Twitter.

I use Twitter to post a photo or video link, then I quickly sign off and return to my work or other activity. As a writer, I find the character limitations a frustrating feature of the platform. I have heard arguments that the character restriction is precisely the reason people enjoy Twitter over other platforms, but I simply don’t get it.

According to a demographic study of Twitter’s market, the majority of active users outside of the United States live in Brazil (27.7 million) and Japan (25.9 million). In Mexico, where I currently live, there are 23.5 million users. These numbers provide insight to the multiple languages available via Twitter.

Twitter's most active users are males between 18-29 years old. I’m not between the ages of 18-29 and as a writer, I cannot support language restriction. I'm not Twitter's intended market. Is Twitter not concerned with attracting potential users outside of their current market? I have not come across any information that indicates there is interest in making significant changes to the platform to attract more diverse users.

This lack of interest in diverse users could potentially be related to their employment practices. According to a 2016 diversity report as cited by CNBC, Twitter employees are 57 percent White, 32 percent Asian, 3 percent Black, 4 percent Latinx and 37 percent female. In a work environment that is overwhelmingly male and White, there is room for improvement in areas of diversity and inclusion.

On June 27, Twitter announced that they are welcoming Candi Castleberry Singleton to their team as the vice president of inclusion and diversity. I applaud them for making this hire, and from the research, I gathered on Singleton, I believe she is capable of helping to create a productive work environment for all Twitter employees. I hope that Ms. Singleton’s first area of focus is to facilitate a process to hire and retain more employees of color.

Diverse and inclusive work environments that include employees of different race, gender, sexual orientation, age, and able-body backgrounds can enable companies to make quantum leaps in their products and services. The uniqueness of their experiences can assist innovative thinking that has the potential to lead to measurable profits. With a diverse and inclusive work environment companies, including Twitter, can attract more users to their products and services.

What is your favorite social media platform and why? Leave a response in the comments of the post for this blog on my Instagram account.

#socialmedia #twitter #diversity #inclusion