Somewhere in 2008, I decided to give twitter a try. Like most people I was curious – what is so special about this thing anyway? So I signed up, which wasn’t hard at all. Then I sat there twiddling my thumbs and wondering – hmm.
And I did nothing further.
And I logged out.
Number of tweets – Zero. 140 characters be damned.
My dilemma, like many people, I do not have any friends on twitter. What can I say, we are weird this way, a bunch of overexcited workaholics who hardly ever get on to facebook. We are not the really out-there social types.
My a-ha moment came sometime last month. Give twitter another try, only this time, do it for social networking with likeminded souls, not necessarily friends. YAY. I don’t need a life to go on twitter. I can follow random people.
Twitter is an (amazing) tool for information and marketing. Listen and engage.
#1 Twitter is not like facebook – you don’t need friends on twitter
If you are hesitant to give twitter a try, then consider this, on facebook you only have people who you know – known as your friends. On twitter, you can follow anyone who catches your interest. You don’t have to know them and vice versa. Say you are interested in collecting old books, you will find people on twitter who do the same. You are big on watercolour painting, well there are tons of artists on twitter you can network with. Bet you wanna try searching for interests now. Search #keyword. ( # helps people categorize messages.)
#2 Twitter is not like instant messenger – you are not bound
If you are like most people, you don’t have time to go on online and have chats with people you hardly know. Well, that’s the beauty of twitter, you don’t have to.
Twitter is about ‘ambient intimacy’. You maintain a meaningful connection with people without having to respond to anything. It’s still good to, but you don’t have to.
Imagine going outside for a walk. You see people walking past talking to each other. It’s a bit like eavesdropping on them AS YOU PASS THEM. You might say something to people ahead of you (if they are listening to you – as in following you), and you could hear things people are saying if you are following them.
It can be loads of fun – if these people mean something to you. Say you find out your favourite blogger is getting married and you decide to pop over and say congrats. You hear somebody has launched an ebook you might be tempted to check it out. Oooh, you coud overhear people saying nice things about you. That would probably make your day.
I have started to follow all bloggers I have subscribed to, writers, minimalists, social media people, booklovers etc etc. At one time I might get on and find Darren Rowse of Problogger posting something – which he does a lot by the way – he is a prolific tweeter. I might tweet mentioning somebody’s name (Add @nameofperson ) and they will see it, and so will others. So it’s a very public way of showing affection or ill feelings for that matter.
Going back to our twitter walk, you go there when it suits you and respond or post if you want to. Tweets are not connected to each other and you are not required to keep track of all the tweets, no one can. People following thousand’s of people will have a continuos flow of tweets appearing in their timeline (the main window, where new tweets appear in real time).
You can also tell others what you heard – as in retweet the original message (RT message)
#3 Twitter keeps you in the know
You get to hear all sorts of news that now sometimes break on twitter first. You get to hear news from your favourite bloggers, writers, celebrities and the like. Twitter can be your instant service for the latest news, happening before your eyes.
#4 Twitter is good for your blog
Twitter is good for business, or for broadening your circle of hobby –ers. If you want to bounce off ideas for your new business you want to set up, you will find likeminded people to talk to. It also helps to spread word about your blog – and that’s NEVER a bad thing.
Are you on twitter? Do you like it? Hate it? Want to give it a go? Here is what you can do
- Go on to twitter and make yourself a username. Fill your profile as it will help people decide if you want to follow you back.
- Have you got friends or colleagues on twitter? That’s good, start following them.
- Do you follow blogs? Start following them. Start following me @WritingH. I usually tweet about all things OTHER than blogging. :)
- Do you like any particular celebrities, sports people, tv and media personalities, journalists, etc etc. Find them and follow them.
- Spend 5 minutes at a time following what people are saying. Soon, you will start to get an idea of what to respond to, what to retweet and so on. You can start tweeting from the beginning. The more you tweet, the more people will follow you.
So, what is your twitter id? Let me know and I would be happy to follow you!
Marya Writes 
I like the approach you took to writing about Twitter. Feel free to follow me @NatsCR. What is your Twitter name?
Thanks for your kind words. I will be following you for sure – still seems a bit stalk-ish to me heheh. My is is @WritingH
merci
Thank you! :)
Thank you Marya – I have been feeling like you – not sure if twitter was worth the time. You’ve convinced me. I will find time this week. Love your blog.
Thank you Joy – your comments alwas brighten MY day. Have a good one! :)
I like twitter as well. In many ways, it seems easier than Facebook. I’m still learning the finer points of responding to mentions and using it to communicate with someone. Do you respond to in a message to people that follow you, and if so what type of message do you send?
Hi Cathy – you don’t HAVE to. If you want to, you can click on reply button that appears when you hover over the tweet. Or you can send them a message b putting @theirname in the tweet. In both cases, others will see our tweets as well. Hope that helps! Cheers :)
Very helpful post. I have been a twitter member for a number of years but only started using it regularly this year. It reinforced my idea that there was SOMETHING to it.
My twitter id is @raya01
I am on it Sandra. Thanks :)
I tried twitter last year and couldn’t get it. The point of it. But if ‘you’ are a blogger I can see the value to it especially if you are monetizing your blog. Its another tool. When my blog is up and running and I’ve gotten that steep learning curve behind me, I guess, with some prompting and rereading this blog, I could give it another shot.
Thanks Marya
Hi Catherine, you are not alone. I didn’t get it either hence the post. :) You could try searching for people with same interests before you get your blog thing going, and build up some connections. This will go you a nice base to annouce your blog to. Just my opinion. :)
Hey Marya, glad to see you discovered the usefulness of Twitter! I’ve been on there for almost a couple years now. 9,7000 tweets later – I’m definitely there to stay! As you mention in your post, it’s a great way to get updated on new information and what people are doing. It’s also nice that you can follow people without them ever following you back (like celebrities or A-list bloggers).
I think the walking analogy works really well. Twitter is constantly in motion. If you follow a lot of people, there is a constant stream of updates passing you by – walk away from your computer and you’ll miss it. Get on at the right time and you may find a cool tweet to respond to. It’s very “in the moment” – I like that about it.
Hi Steven. I think one of the biggest reasons that keep people away from twitter is, they don’t have friends on twitter so they are not sure what to do. Second, they feel overwhelmed with the number of people on there and assume they have to spend huge amounts of time on it. When I realized, both are not true, I decided to give it a shot. Still quite new at it but beginning to see what the fuss is about. Many thanks for your thoughts. :)
Hi Marya, thanks for the great Twitter pep talk. I too joined in 2008, but hardly ever use it. Since I’ve been working on building an online business and getting ready to launch a new blog I keep meaning to get in there and start tweeting. But two things keep stopping me:
**What should I tweet about? My new blog’s not up yet, so tweeting in that niche might not make much sense.
**I have a variety of interests and i follow quite a few people and organizations. So when I look at my Twitter feed it’s kind of overwhelming with all those Tweets, Retweets, etc. Do you use lists to separate categories? That’s what I’m considering. I’d like to start following bloggers and writers, but I’m afraid their tweets will be lost unless I’m obsessively checking every half hour (something I don’t have the time to do.
In any event thanks for the kick in the butt! Nice post
Thanks very much for dropping by Sarah. Follow bloggers by all means – you are not supposed to read all their tweets anyway. Just catch up when you are online, when it suits you. This way you can tweet your updates as well – about other things and you will slowly build up followers as well. This is how I am doing it. Twitter is about networking, so take time to follow people. I got all excited, but you can actually say hi to people when you add them. I am thinking that, although I might have been following them for a while.