So, Convince Me to Tweet

So, this Twitter thing.  I know many people who are just addicted to it, "tweeting" their way through the day - posting their own micro-blog posts (140 characters or less, also known as a "tweet"), and following other people's tweets.  I know people are making all sorts of professional connections that they wouldn't ordinarily be able to make, either in person or via email.  I know that you can get up-to-the-minute news on story leads, requests for pitches, and other late-breaking announcements.  I know you can feel like you've just attended a conference or teleseminar, just by reading the tagged "tweets".

And normally I'm the one pointing out the value of social media/networking tools like this, pointing out how they can help establish and spread your brand, and how they can help you connect with other like-minded people, and your target audience.

But I'll be honest - the thought of Twitter is overwhelming to me.  Make blogging easier (heck,*anyone* can come up with 140 characters or less to say!), and suddenly people have *volumes* of quick things they want to share.  That's the biggest reason I haven't joined up yet - I just have the impression that if I did, I would be inundated with an avalanche of little updates - just more content I'd have to sift through later.  I can barely keep up with my email and blog reader subscriptions as it is, thank you.

And the whole internal language of it is mildly annoying, as an outsider.  I've clicked on to people's Twitter feeds, but I can't read through even a half dozen tweets before I'm stymied by an "@" symbol or hash mark, and I have to filter through my brain to access some article I read months ago that defined the Twitter shorthand.  And I figure, if I have to work that hard to 'translate' the tweets, it's not worth my time.

But maybe I'm missing something.  Maybe Twitter could make the "sifting" through content easier.  Maybe I'm missing out on content that is only shared on Twitter.  Maybe I'm missing out on that one big connection that could be my "big break".  Maybe it's not the huge time-suck I assume it to be.  Anyone care to convince me?  Please leave a comment and we'll see where the conversation takes us.

EDITED TO ADD: Ok, ok - so it's worth trying out.  Follow me at http://twitter.com/AngiePedersen

Comments

[Kim Dushinski]

Angie:

I have to say that using Twitter is the best thing to happen to me online in a really, really long time. Seriously, I have made better connections more quickly using Twitter than I have in years of getting to know people through traditional networking. I have found out information from a wide variety of sources and it is just fun.

It is not like email, you don't have to read everything that is in your twitterstream (the tweets of people you follow). You just take a look when you can and go away. When you come back there is new stuff. It is not a time suck.

Think of it this way, some people think that blogging is a waste of time or that it takes too much time. Does it? Only you can answer that. I say Twitter *can* be a time suck or it can be the best networking tool ever. Some days it is both.

Please, please, please, just try Twitter. You can always quit if you don't like it. Follow me and I'll show you the ropes.

@KimDushinski

[Milena Thomas]

My advice? Don't knock it 'til you've tried it! You can always stop tweeting.

[JoLynn Braley @ The Fit Shack]

Hey there Angie, saw your friend's tweet (Kim Dushinski - follow her on Twitter @KimDushinski) about your post and your thoughts that Twitter might be a real time waster.....well, I really don't need to say anything else because it was her tweet that brought me to your blog to read your post and leave a comment - how's that for the power of social media, eh? ;)

I'd suggest give Twitter another look, there are tons of positive-minded, entrepreneurial spirited folks on there and once you get the hang of it it's really great fun. At the same time though, after giving it a week or so of using it if you really don't like it then I'd say don't use it - if it's not fun then why do it?! :)

All the best to ya!

JoLynn

@TheFitShack

[jenny]

Oh Come on! I can't argue with the "more content to sift through" part, because that is true. But it's good content. Good connections, good networking. Faster snippets of information, just the way we ADD intarwebs people like it. But I CAN argue that actually it is hard to communicate thoughts in 140 characters, it takes practice to be so concise - something very hard for me as I tend to ramble (SHUT UP). And the learning the language part - BS, woman. It's like learning any other language, the more you used it, the easier it gets to use. I used to speak a decent pigeon Spanish, but I haven't used it 10 years, so you know, POOF.
Uh...timesuck? No comment.

[Travis]

I find that twitter helps me eliminate most of the stuff in my blog reader, because I see the content when its fresh. And I can contact most of the people that I would normally email, through twitter as well.

I rarely go back through the old twitstreams... so I don't have to "catch up" if you are meant to hear something they will @teedubya or d teedubya message you.

Personally, it seems as if Twitter is the next generation communication system.

http://twitter.com/teedubya

[Kayla]

I like what Seth Godin says about Twitter - "I never used Twitter, not once. I didn't start because I knew I couldn't spend the time to do a good job. Picking where not to be is tricky but important."

I think that is the key for Twitter users. In essence Twittering is stepping up your blogging - planning microposts that mean something. Everything we write over time builds trust with our audience - Twitter does it in smaller segments.

I think it is more difficult to produce good content on Twitter - only the best can write it well. However, if you can translate your message into bite size bits smaller than 140 characters, it is an amazing resource. Reading a paragraph is much easier for me than a wordy post.

I think Twitter is a powerful tool. I also think those who use it should be prepared to do it well. Personally I haven't done it yet to the level it should be done. Twitter is powerful if you can HELP your followers with your posts, giving them something they need or will find useful or funny. What isn't a good use of Twitter is mindless posts updating everyone on the boring details of your day...

Unless you have a network who follows you and you might need their help - check out this Berkely grad who used Twitter to get rescued in Egypt - http://www.collegeotr.com/college_otr/quottwitterquot_helps_a_jailbird_from_uc-berkeley_8228

[Nancy Nally]

Twitter evangelist, reporting for duty!

I absolutely adore Twitter, both for personal and for business uses. It's half the reason that I just bought my iPhone - to take Twitter with me everywhere! I have found it immensely useful and enjoyable in the year that I've been using it.

It is fabulous at letting me keep up with a large variety of people in a wide variety of my interests, and the 140 character limit means that it isn't too overwhelming. I pick how many people I want to follow, so I am in control of how big my "stream" that I am reading is. If someone is talking too much because of an event you aren't interested in, you can put them on pause for awhile and pick them back up later.

You create your own experience on Twitter by the people you choose to "follow". I have a combination of people I know in real life, people I consider "online friends", and streams I follow for information like some of the tech celebrities and some businesses. Some of my contacts are personal (my husband, for instance) and some of them are business-related. Not a day goes by that I don't both learn something interesting and laugh out loud at something I read in my stream.

I truly believe that people get out of Twitter what they put into it. If you spend the time to fill out your profile with keywords of your interests (so it is searchable), look to find your friends on Twitter (there are tons of scrap industry people on Twitter now) and Twitter regularly for a bit, you will find that before too long you will feel part of a community that you have created.

Twitter does have a bit of shorthand and a few tricks for using it...but remember what is was like when you first signed onto a message board and didn't know all of the abbreviations there? You learned! And Twitter is the same way. You pick it up as you go along, and you can ask people, and there are web pages to look at, to figure it out.

The @ symbol is just a way of indicating a Twitter username. If you use it at the beginning of your tweet, followed by a username, it sends the message to the stream of that twitter user. So "@ScrapNancy Hope you and @MikeNally have a good weekend" would come to my feed for me to see, but not my husband's, but would tell people that MikeNally was my husband's username and not some weird way you have of talking ;)

The # symbol is called a hashtag and is used in front of specific strings of characters to "tag" a tweet for indexing by certain programs. That is why during conferences, for instance, you'll see people putting a #tag in all their tweets about the conference. Some programs then can help people search for those tweets to see all of the tweets about an event or topic to read, even if they aren't following that person. For instance, all CHA-Winter 09 attendees on twitter could agree to use the tag #chaw09 or something similar when they post about the show.

Twitter may make it easier for anyone to blog because of the 140 character limit, but it also makes it easier to read because of that limit. No way could I follow as many people as I do on normal blogs, but I can scan a couple pages of Tweets in just a minute or two to see what the latest happenings with my people are.

If you haven't actually signed up for Twitter and are just looking at someone else's Twitter page to try and figure it out, it is definitely confusing. It makes more sense when you have your own page, your own group of people, and are doing it yourself.

Don't be scared of Twitter. It is, by far, the most useful of all of the web 2.0 networking tools in my opinion. And the most fun, too.

Now, any bets on whether we crash their servers tonight with all the election night Twittering? I'm glad I'm not their IT guys tonight.

[Michelle@Scrapability]

I'd say I'm a 50/50 on all of this. I'm a huge Twitterer, but use it more for information gathering than anything. Search twitter for particular keywords - some work, some don't - and feed the RSS results though to a feedreader to read at leisure. I also have a couple of tools hanging around my browser so that I'm always onpar with the tweets.

I don't necessarily follow all the people following me. But as you suggest - I have met a lot of excellent contacts through Twitter - people who have picked up on my blogs or tweets because they themselves have searched for keywords I've fulfilled.

I don't use it for chat much. I don't @ or direct message many times. I don't know why - it just seems a waste (to me only) of either good chat software out there built for the purpose, and for clogging up my own informational needs.

Twitter is huge in Internet Marketing terms at the moment. So much so that it's the tool of choice for communicating by several IM gurus, and pro-bloggers. In fact, Danny Rowse of Problogger.com just yesterday started up a new blog targetting Twitter called TwiTip, just for everyone who wants all the news and supporting helper apps.

What I hate to see is the use of Twitter for direct internet marketing. There have been a couple of occasions recently where IMarketers have sent out Twitter messages with URLs to their new products etc already written out for their supporters to tweet out to the twitisphere, just to see the viral marketing of it. There are also commercial-orientated Twitter sub-apps where people can advertise. I guess I don't like to see social networking go moneterised.

So saying this, I love Twitter - better possibly than Facebook. Twitter keeps me in touch much easier than searching out hidden groups in Facebook or other social networks. You can't search for keywords through Tumblr, or for Rooms in FriendFeed, but you can find exactly what you want through Twitter.

Recently a Writer I'm taking a course from used Twitter in a very successful gift-giving way. She celebrated her birthday by giving away some expensive gifts from her online courseware. Anyone joining her on Twitter went into a daily draw, and everyone got a prize. It was an excellent way to use the tool.

And even though I've used Twitter for a long time, I still get stymied by the @s and #s. And I don't like so many tinyurls coming through (even though the character limitation enforces it) because you never know where you're being sent.

And you couldn't hold such a discussion as this one on Twitter, of course. And I do believe that it may be cutting down on blog comments from others, so perhaps that's just a sign of the changing dynamics of the www recently.

So, 50/50 from me. I'm both pro and con Twitter, but wouldn't do without it on a daily basis.

[Jeanine Baechtold]

I do love twitter because of the fact it is short and sweet - i don't have time to read blogs (except yours of course! tee hee!) right now and with twitterfox everything is really manageable. I follow a bunch of different types of people and it keeps it entertaining. I will say i use it more for just social nonsense than work-related networking though, but that is just me.

I have to admit though Angie - i have searched for you on twitter numerous times, so please let us know if/when you sign up!!

@jeanineb

[www.HollnerPromos.com]

I have to agree with many of the comments already made. One thing that I try to encourage my clients to do is to help boost their client relationships by getting clients to follow them. The fact that there are no spam blockers on Twitter helps you get through where other methods are failing. The other thing to consider is that you want to communicate with clients the way they want to be communicated with. Not all of your people will follow you, but the ones that do will appreciate that you're there.

A key element of relationship building is frequency. Twitter allows you an easy, free way to increase contact frequency. It also forces you to think, since you only have 140 characters to get the message across.

Thanks to the others with positive examples of how it gets used. I'm compiling some of these for a free training I'm putting together to teach the world to tweet, or at least some of the locals here in Atlanta!

I'd love more feedback. Follow me @atlbizconsult.

[Ellen Marden (zaellen)]

I'm being a total copycat, but Kim said it perfectly..."I have made better connections more quickly using Twitter than I have in years of getting to know people through traditional networking. I have found out information from a wide variety of sources and it is just fun."

I agree. I have explored more blogs and information and learned more about creative people out there because of the ability to scan through twitter. I love being able to have conversations and share tools and strategies here. Not to mention it feeds my ADD brain.

Glad to see the follow from you today.

NICE JOB CONVINCING ANGIE TWEEPLES! :)

[susan]

So I am reading this with interest but I am wondering...how much time a day would you say you spend on twitter? I know how much time I spend on email and what a virtual blackhole it can be...I am worried that Twitter would be the same for me. Do all of you twitterers think it saves you time and how so?