The Future of Social Media and Meteorology
Tomer Burg • 28 April 2022 • Non-Weather
Post Highlights
Much of the meteorology community is currently on Twitter, commonly nicknamed "WxTwitter". This has not always been the case, and may not be the case either down the road as new social media platforms arise and others decline.
This post discusses some pros and cons of social media use in meteorology, both at an individual level from the perspective of an early-career meteorologist and from a broader community level, including some thoughts on where the weather community on social media may go in the future.
Social media is ubiquitous nowadays; many social media platforms exist, such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, etc. These platforms also serve many purposes, ranging from having fun in one's spare time to networking and building an online portfolio, both at an individual and professional level. Many communities or sub-communities also exist on these platforms, such as the weather/meteorology community.
One of these platforms, namely Twitter, has been in media headlines recently with uncertainty about its future direction after being purchased by Elon Musk. I will not make any speculations nor provide a personal opinion; that is not the point of this post. Rather, the overarching idea is that over the long term, social media platforms aren't always stable; they come and go with time. Some last longer than others, some decline slowly while others have a more rapid decline, but turnover happens as once-inescapable platforms become outdated while people search for the next new big platform.
This isn't an idea unique to social media; a meteorological analogy is real-time numerical weather model websites. Nowadays, Tropical Tidbits and Pivotal Weather are among the most widely used websites, but this was not the case 10 years ago, and this may not be the case either 10 or 20 years down the road. Some websites have lasted longer than others, especially through innovating and adapting with time. Similarly to how each website provides its own unique set of features that distinguishes it from the other (e.g., Tropical Tidbits' cross-sections, Pivotal Weather soundings), social media platforms have their own unique strengths, such as Twitter's chronological timeline.
If as a frequent poster on Twitter, something were to happen to the platform and suddenly it disappears or people stop using it, what would happen to my portfolio/personal brand?
This is a question I've pondered to myself recently, having very frequently used Twitter in the past but more recently somewhat weaning myself off of it. Social media use can be polarizing; objectively stated, some view it as a great way to network and build an online portfolio, while others caution of the dangers of getting in trouble on social media, or view it as overly artificial or a waste of time.
As with before, I won't be providing a personal opinion on this; I'll simply be sharing my own experience. I will also strongly emphasize that this is unique to my perspective and experiences - what works for one person may not work for another. I have benefitted from using Twitter in building connections and name recognition that I would likely not have accomplished otherwise, largely through sharing weather analyses and visuals, but I've also had my fair share of missteps over the years.
Missteps and making mistakes are an inevitable part of learning and growing at an individual and professional level, but in the past before social media and more recently for people that generally stay off social media, these are not very visible or public. As one's name recognition grows with more followers of varying backgrounds and opinions, these missteps can be quite public and harmful if not handled well and learned from.
Which takes me back to the question I posed earlier - there are pros and cons to using social media which vary from person to person. As I kept posting weather analyses on social media, I gradually realized it was almost dangerous hosting much of my brand/profile on one platform. Similarly to how it's recommended in the stock market to diversify one's portfolio, it can also be beneficial to spend time that would've gone to social media on expanding into other platforms to build one's profile - a few very limited examples include GitHub for code sharing, building a website for hosting material, publishing research for academics, or tutoring/teaching experience for those that are interested in teaching. These can all be done via social media to an extent, but other platforms exist that have their own sets of pros and cons, and may be better than social media to achieve these goals, reach other audiences and last for a longer duration.
A large share of the social media meteorology community is currently on Twitter, commonly nicknamed "WxTwitter". This wasn't always the case - weather communities have existed and to an extent still exist in email listservs, forums and blogs, for example.
An example of a fake weather forecast that went viral in 2017. Hurricane Irma subsequently made landfall in Florida.
Twitter has several unique aspects vs. past platforms for weather communication, such as the 240-character limit per tweet, and the fact that wxTwitter easily overlaps with the public, much more so than older weather forums that were almost exclusively limited to the weather community. The character limit can be beneficial in condensing otherwise unnecessarily long text into quick and easy to read/communicate weather information, but in some cases can also be harmful as the character limit adds a constraint on adding important caveats, which can result in tweets going viral and being misinterpreted without full context.
As communicating forecast uncertainty has become more important, this exposed another limitation of social media: shorter posts with more definitive statements and/or bolder forecasts can generate much more engagement than more complex and nuanced posts (or threads) that emphasize uncertainty. Additionally, in addition to the National Weather Service, many other forecasts can be spread around which can at times disagree with each other and can generate confusion among the public. Keeping this in mind, the American Meteorological Society provides a useful list of best practices for sharing weather information on social media.
It's impossible to know where Twitter will be 5 or 10 years down the road, but at some point in the future it may decline as newer platforms will take its place. If/when Twitter were to no longer be suitable for a large portion of the meteorological community, where would much of the discussion migrate over to? Not all of the major platforms are suitable; for example, TikTok uses an algorithm not based on chronological order to display content. As with other largely non-chronological platforms such as Facebook, this can present communication issues especially to the public with outdated forecasts being promoted due to high levels of interaction/activity.
It's also possible the next big new platform for weather communication may not exist right now, or may only be in its infancy. Similarly to prior platforms that the weather community has utilized, I would suspect the next platform may similarly be chronologically based. Other questions to consider are whether the next big platform(s) will be largely limited to the weather community, or similarly to Twitter have a larger overlap with the general public, keeping in mind the pros and cons that come with having much more engagement with the public than the past. Additionally, it will be interesting to see if some form of a character/word limit per post sticks around in a post-WxTwitter world.
In any event, it also helps to expand one's portfolio beyond social media. From the perspective of a graduate student using social media, there are benefits to being using it, but nothing comes without risks whether from one's own actions or from the social media platform itself. Regardless of what happens to wxTwitter in the coming years, from the perspective of someone in their early career stages, broadening one's reach helps ensure your portfolio can outlast the social media platform of the day.
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