Linda posted on March 01, 2009 16:59
If you are a regular reader of my blog, you will know that I have written about social sites several times, but I have yet to mention twitter. But lately it seems that everyone is talking (that's in the real world) about twitter. I have even heard several stories on NPR about it, the most recent one this past Saturday.
My first exposure to twitter came when I heard it mentioned during the Presidential campaign. I spent a bit of time trying to figure it out, but it seemed really strange, so I forgot about it. Next I started seeing baffling entries in one of my friends facebook statuses. Things like @jmcw or #troppo. I had no idea what he was talking about, but of course I didn't want to ask!
Then it started to become clear when that same friend, Ryan Doom of Web Ascender, posted a blog entry titled "What is Twitter, why should I use it?". I'm not going to explain it here, so pop over to Ryan's post for the primer!
I still wasn't convinced that I wanted to spend any time tweeting, so I pretty much ignored twitter, that is until one of my coaches started an account and asked us to follow her. So, I set up my account and started following her and some of my friends that were already following her. Of course, I also started following Ryan and a few other people that I happened to run across.
I tend to keep my group of twitter friends somewhat small, following mostly people in my industry, and a few assorted people that I just find interesting. I am constantly surprised by the fact that someone starts following me out of the blue - and I can't figure out any way that we are connected in reality. Some of these people I follow in return, but not always. I have stopped following several people who seemingly tweet every 2 minutes. I have made one new acquaintance through twitter. We have sent several direct messages, talked on the phone once and I look forward to meeting him at a meeting we will both be attending in April.
One of my first surprises came after I tweeted about my weekly Rotary meeting. Within about an hour, I was being followed by Rotary International. A few weeks later, our meeting topic was a presentation from one of our older members who spoke on what Rotary meant to him. So I tweeted "What does Rotary mean to you?" and got two responses from people in other parts of the country. This happened because Rotary International distributed my tweet via a re-tweet - broadcasting my message to all of their followers.
If you spend some time checking out twitter, you will discover a number of people who are just letting the world know what they are doing. Others use their tweets to post links to articles they have written, like this blog post, or other web pages with their information. Some of this is just another way to make online marketing work. Others post information about breaking news, with links to more information.
Tweets are limited to 140 characters, so you have to be brief! Yes, you can have your tweets automatically post to facebook, and there are other sites, I use ping, that will update multiple sites at the same time. I like ping because I can post my message without being distracted at that moment by what everyone else is saying.
While I know that there is much in the twitterverse that I have yet to explore and understand (perhaps I can learn more from @ryandoom!), twitter has become a part of my daily routine. If you want to follow me there, look for @ljlynch.