I can honestly say that I now get Twitter.
I get it! I mean, the concept is about as straight forward as you can get, so I never had a problem grasping the idea of 'tweeting'.
I just had a hard time understanding what the big fuss was about and why people were claiming to be so addicted to it.
I have been addicted to other types of social media (MySpace a few years ago, Facebook for the last year, etc) so I was sure I'd be hooked soon after creating my account last Spring.
But that wasn't the case (right off the bat at least.
) I think I've only updated 50-something times in the past year, so that tells you how little the Twitter buzz affected me up until this point.
5 of those updates were spread out over several months! I've only recently started to update on almost a daily basis.
I am not quite to the point of no return - I can quit any time I want.
However, I think as I get more interaction w/ my fellow Tweeps and get up over a couple hundred followers (I'm close!) I will be strung out on Twitter.
There is a WEALTH of information to be discovered via fellow Tweeters.
Most of it you could care less about.
But if you follow the right types, you will be knee deep in quality info/websites/videos/pod casts/etc.
For example, I follow a social media guru (one out of a billion so called SM experts currently tweeting).
This guy must not be doing anything but tweeting all day - doesn't sound like my kind of fun, but hey - lucky me.
His lack of a life outside the confines of social media websites has helped me.
He directs his followers to articles on everything marketing related.
Articles that have actual content and not fluff.
Thanks to this guy I've learned how to effectively optimize my shop, so that search engines like Google rank me higher in the search results.
If you don't run an online company or you don't work for a company that has an online presence that would benefit from this type of info, then yeah, spare yourself the time Twitter will suck out of your week.
But if you do anything web related - jump into Twitter head first by tweeting as much as possible.
Tweet about things that interest you.
Tweet about things you would want to read.
You'll eventually start to attract an audience with similar interests.
Imagine having that kind of resource - a big pool of your peers that you can tap for info/advice/referrals/whatever at any time of the day or night! I love Facebook, but I can't relate to Jenny from my 4th grade class like I can to some dude in North Dakota that tweets all kinds of great news on the CPSIA issue.
What kind of info can Jenny give me about Internet Retail? WordPress design? Blog advertising? Nothing.
We don't share the same interests or careers.
As much fun as it was to catch up with each other after losing contact for 20 years (give or take!), our 'reconnection' was pretty much over as soon as it started.
With Twitter, you may not get to relive moments from your past with a former classmate or sorority sister, but you can sure as hell get ahead in your online career.
One day last week I found a post on a popular blog highlighting a product in my shop.
The owner of this blog follows me on Twitter and read one of my posts.
He liked my site, liked the product, threw a review up on his site and just like that - I had my first (known) Twitter related success story.
Thanks to him, I got traffic, new followers and who knows - maybe they subscribed to my newsletter! Maybe they were one of the people I sold to that day! I don't care really.
It just makes me happy.
So, according to this former skeptic, Twitter is actually worthy of the hype.
Just don't expect it to do the work for you - just like any form of social media, the more you give, the more you get.
Oh, & visit Mr.
Tweet - that's something I'll discuss later, but do it now!