Friday, February 21, 2014

Live Tweeting @ the UN

Written by Ammie Lin '14

It’s always an exciting trip to the UN Headquarters with fellow LGS peers, whether it’s your first or fifth time.  On Friday, February 7, we attended UNA-USA Members' Day and the 2014 Mid-Atlantic Regional Conference, themed “The United Nations: Building Peace in an Age of Upheaval.”  Since this Conference wasn’t the most interactive, I took the opportunity to be an active participant via social media. 

Since becoming a Youth Delegate to the American Association of University Women last September, I learned just how effective hashtags, retweeting, and following can be in the Twitter world.  By tweeting about speakers and their remarks on the UN, US, and peace, I gained over 20 followers that day.  I also engaged in conversations with other attendees of the Conference via Twitter. 

I was especially thrilled to see Maher Nasser, Director of the Outreach Division at the UN Department of Public Information (DPI).  He announced that the 65th UN DPI/NGO Conference will be held in NY, August 27-29 this year.  As the Communications Chair of the UN DPI/NGO Youth Representatives, I immediately shared the news via Twitter in hopes of increasing awareness of the Youth Representative’s existence and presence at the Conference.

Although Twitter is well known for celebrity news, it can also be used to bring about social awareness and change.  By increasing my Twitter followers and social influence, I am also building my own support network for future issues that I may tweet about.


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