Many people follow celebrities.  Others follow athletes.  Some simply follow friends and family members, but now you can follow the Castleton Spartan.
The Castleton Spartan newspaper has now stepped deeper into the social networking world by creating a Twitter account, @CastletonSpartan, giving students more opportunities to stay constantly connected to the campus community. 
Journalism student Martina Marchese is in charge of maintaining the paper’s Twitter page, which includes tweeting about upcoming articles and keeping students informed about any news on campus.
“Twitter has become a huge way to communicate,” said Marchese, who believes that by tweeting about student’s articles they will be reaching a wider audience.   
After creating the account several weeks ago, the Spartan newspaper’s Twitter now includes a photo of the Castleton Spartan, a link to the website and an entourage of 24 followers.
Utilizing Twitter has been beneficial for the paper thus far, getting views and feedback from people who would not have otherwise seen its articles.
Communications professor Dave Blow encourages students to link their articles on Facebook and tweet about them on their personal accounts as well as the papers.  As the advisor for the Spartan, Blow thinks that making the paper more web-based is a step in the right direction.
“We need to play to our audience,” said Blow, adding that though people still enjoy reading print, the Internet has also become a main focus for many newspapers.
The site has gotten a good response from students and the paper’s follower base continues to grow everyday as people become more aware of the new page.
“It’s a good way to help students stay updated and aware of what’s going on around campus,” said business major Steven Josselyn who checks his Twitter account daily.
Josselyn agrees that the site will be beneficial for Castleton students who want to read the news and also for journalism students to get their articles out on the web. 
“I find myself reading articles online more and more every year,” said Castleton Sophomore KT Pellegrino.  “It’s how I get my news.”
Though Pellegrino is not an avid Twitter user, she believes that getting news from social networking sites is fast and easy, which makes it appealing for many people.   She plans to start following via Twitter since she rarely has the time to read the paper when it comes out in print.  
  “Twitter is what everyone is into now,” Pellegrino said.  “I’m glad Castleton’s finally catching on.”