Like a whistle or a ring, Twitter is the new telephone.
Gone are the days of the landline, dialing your day away to convey your engagement news to your aunt Mary in California. Remember the days when you used to be able to talk to a bunch of people about everything and anything on a party line?
So what do we do today?
Technology is the light at the end of the tunnel offering us the ability to share our baby news with an old friend who has moved to Asia. No more snail mail, waiting two weeks to receive word of when your cousin Justin is coming to visit from Florida.
Twitter, a social network allowing you to connect with others globally for business and personal affairs is free and fun. A worldwide network of people and businesses for all to explore, share and learn from.
Personally, you can keep in touch with anyone or reconnect with those lost, sharing information about your life and reading news of what’s going on in their life as well. Imagine you have 30 close friends, 50 acquaintances and you want to let them know you just moved into a new apartment in New York City (costing you a small fortune) and are now pursuing your acting career. With a few words typed and some clicks you can post you news for them to read or even for everyone on the planet to read. It’s public text messaging. It can also keep up to date on world information, news and trends. In fact many news agencies have people dedicated to finding breaking news around the world which is usually first heard on Twitter.
So many people use the social network, it offers a lot of traffic to your professional business if done right and you will have another avenue with which to market your services, communicate information and connect with your customers. Automatically post updates from your website or new blog postings.
Imagine XYZ Construction of Chicago who has been in business for 10 years is looking to increase their client list while keeping with our modern technological times. They might use their website, twitter and their existing customer base to allow friends of their customers to connect and learn about their business, what they do, who likes their work, anything pertinent so they can drive up more business and broaden their working area to beyond the Chicago area.
Like magic, twitter has changed how we communicate, changing our lives forever!
It’s fast, modern, free and fun, what more could a person ask for?
So should you tweet, absolutely! The only thing you need to do now is figure out what to do with your telephone and mailbox, besides clean around them. See How To Twitter.
Keep in mind that everything you post on Twitter is public. So security should be a concern. Safe tweeting!
This reminds me: I’m still difficult for me to explain what Twitter is all about to those who haven’t any clue. Most of them usually see the service as a frivolous way to broadcast and communicate, though once I explain that it’s a great way of getting information real-time they realize that it’s not really that strange after all. You’re right, Twitter is really a very different way of communicating but it becomes intuitive once you get the hang of it. The service has really changed our assumptions about online interactions and it’ll probably get even more popular as time goes by.
Thanks to the evolution of technology, social media has made our lives so much easier over the years, especially places like Twitter. There is so much you can do on that site to take advantage of it, such as keep up with trendy topics, find links to news reports, communicate with the people you know or want to get to know, build your business connections and you can share your views and experiences with the world since almost everyone has a smartphone and most of them hop onto Twitter. Never overlook the power of Twitter. It can do wonders any way you want it to. Some might find it rather too confusing to master at first, but it’s simple and effective once you get accustomed to it. Some might also see it as being useless, but that’s far from the truth.
I love how some businesses have been using Twitter. Large corporations tend to feel cold and distant to the average consumer, and being able to set up a Social Media department to keep in touch with common trends is fascinating, from a marketing perspective.
Extrapolating from this, Twitter is arguably one of the most important tools for a politician in today’s society. The value of the ability to immediately start a back-and-forth with any of your constituents or, vise versa, any of your representatives, cannot be overstated. They also get the same benefit that large corporations do, the ability to sift through the avalanche of information they get coming through Twitter to find common trends, to see what people are interested in and concerned about. Twitter has the capability to be to the users of today what the fireside chats were to the general populace in the 30’s and 40’s. I think you’ll find more and more as time goes on that those who use this resource prosper while those who ignore it fail.
This is a good summary of the use of Social media generally, but fails to explain why twitter itself is a ‘must’ or why/how it’s different from other platforms. Of course, web and SM users already know this, but they already understand the importance of social media; neophytes, however, wold likely have many unanswered questions. Overall, it is a good overview of the benefits of social media. I hope you’ll write more detailed posts about the various platforms in the future.
Twitter is one of those services that I’ve never really been able to get away with. I keep trying to find reasons to follow people or to get people to follow me to listen to what I’m saying but I personally don’t see the benefits. For me, Twitter is about connecting with people you don’t know, so I just don’t really get it. That being said there have been times when a Google search has turned up something useful from a person’s Twitter account, but that that’s about as involved as I see myself getting.
There’s a reason I prefer using Twitter over Facebook because Twitter is so much to use and I’m able to keep track of all the updates from my favorite people, companies, and trends. Twitter is much easier for me to navigate because I can just find the latest updates right off the home screen interface. It’s my very first social media that I have signed up and actually like. I actually use Twitter for my business, which helps because I have followers who would like want to see the latest updates, which isn’t as complicated as other social medias.
Twitter is one of the best social media website for me. It’s great way of expressing your thoughts and feelings. The best thing I like about twitter is I can get up close and personal with my favourite authors or celebrities around the globe. It’s great cause I get to keep up with all of them and even have the chance to interact with them 😀
Interestingly, the only well-formulated argument against Twitter I’ve come across came from former UBC president Stephen Toope. Prof. Toope stated in a relatively recent issue of Trek magazine that he considered Twitter to be a means by which ill-considered reactions could proliferate online. He was reticent about the potential for instant responses to influence other users and cause misinformation to spread. At the heart of his concern, of course, is that Twitter, being a platform that not only encourages, but enforces very succinct messages, does not lend itself to users formulating their responses to news or other users’ Tweets in thoughtful and critical ways. For these reasons, Toope does not have a Twitter account. What’s interesting to me, while I do see merit in what Toope says, is the level to which this line of argument has been drowned out by the success of Twitter in both the business and political arenas (not to mention the social arena). It seems that there’s a time and a place for well argued and thoughtful responses, and the business and political spheres just don’t have the time, especially when it comes to news. I wonder if Toope’s reaction could also be taken as a symbol of the increasing lag that has opened up between universities and the public sector when it comes to embracing new technology.
I enjoy Twitter on a personal level, though it sometimes seems a bit overwheleming as to the amount of news produced. On a business level I do use it but have never really been sure about it’s effectiveness. This is especially true for very small unknown companies such as my own. I do use it but not as often as I was told was recomended (I tweet around four times a day, twenty was recomended). I am unsure of how to increase the number of followers I have, other than providing a link on my companies web site which I do. Are there other things I should be doing?
I think Twitter and other social media should be used as marketing tools for people. I’ve actually seen alot of people gain success and popularity for using social media as a marketing tool. And even people tweeting about great products they love brings publicity to the company for free.
Interesting read! The way I use twitter is to feel ‘in touch’ with my favorite actors and mucisians. Twitter has provided the world with a great way to interact with people that would normally be ‘out of reach’. Being a guitarist who has serious interest in earning money being a session or gig player, I have tweeted out to succesful people in the past – and gotten some great responses! This could never even be dreamed of back in the day.
There is the twitter abuse, there is nonsense being spewed all day but it’s quite easy to stay clear of this and just find whatever you want.
I am not a fan of the twitter interface and often time found it very confusing. Perhaps reorganizing the UI and making it less cluttered will attract more users such as myself to this website.
I do use Twitter quite a bit. I have had a lot of success with the tweets I have posted. Twitter has actually been better than Facebook recently.
As far as for business this is a great idea. I manage a food truck and 8/10 times I communicate to the fans where the truck will be posted. I usually get catering events off of twitter.
What’s good about twitter is that it gives you a summarized account of the current news without you having to read an entire article or watch the whole news program. It gives you the latest blow by blow account of what’s happening out there. By just simply clicking on the hash tags, you can filter down the information that you are interested in without the need to search it in Google.
I’m not much of a Twitter fan but I do have an account and I got to say it’s pretty much better than Facebook to be honest. Also there are a lot of things you can do with Twitter under the hood if you really know what you’re doing.
Wow nice read. I’ve never used Twitter before and know I might just get into it. I heard a lot of things about how people use Twitter as a marketing tool so I guess I’ll tap into that. Thanks for the post, really informative.
I do not use Twitter that much. The only time I really use it is for business purposes. I feel that there is no need for me to use Twitter for personal reasons when I use Facebook.
I have always wanted to get into Twitter. When I was first introduced, I did not get the jist of it. I think that is why a lot of people do not use Twitter; they just do not understand what it is used for. However, tweeting is a nice way of getting your ideas and thoughts out to not just one person in general, but a group of people.
Same here, I wanted to get into it once, but the idea of revealing more than I should to a bunch of strangers didn’t appeal me much. If I had a business… I’d surely go for it tho. Because I totally agree with the points made in the article, but wouldn’t consider Twitter for personal use.
I admit, I was against twitter when I first heard of it. It was only when I started following people who used twitter well that I became interested. Twitter is a medium that can be used in numerous ways. Some people use it for status updates, which I find pretty boring, and some people use it for information sharing…which I find interesting. You have to follow who you like, then your interest will pick up.
I made a Twitter account but have not been on it lately. It seems very time assuming. Plus the main point of Twitter is to broadcast and promote something which you can easily do on Facebook.
I believe that Twitter has also taken the mystery out of many movie stars and famous people. I mean, now we can just log on to Twitter and see what they’ve been up to! Gone are the days of sending snail mail to teen heart throbs and movie stars.
I really don’t use Twitter that much. I just have a junk account laying around that I’ll use if I need to, but other than that I don’t really tweet much. It’s almost kinda another thing to keep track of, and being connected with a couple social networks is already enough for me. Twitter doesn’t really offer much than just another way for people to find out more unwanted info you don’t want out on the internet.
I love twitter. I never found a hugely useful use for twitter for myself, I feel it’s very hard to branch out from nothing on twitter and get followers randomly. However it’s pretty great for the purpose of following people that you enjoy or certain accounts that tweet short but useful stuff that might interest you.
So yeah, twitter is really really cool. But I just never felt I could get the full potential from it.
It seems a bit like Twitter is used for almost anything. People use it for different reasons, just as with any other social media. I’d say that even Instagram could do the job, except that it’s used by less people and as far as I know, more targeted towards teenagers.
To me it’s never really been clear what social media to use and why to use that particular one so I’ve always kept myself to what others are using and for what reason they’ve been using it.
Never really seen a reason to use Twitter since I could just post it up on Tumblr or any other site but I guess Twitter is more universally accepted as a means of updating people about what’s going on in your life.
I think twitter is a great tool to get out quick updates and to promote your business. It can spread a quick “we have a one day sale tomorrow” or “check out our new website *link” quite easily. It also ties in quite well with other social media such as facebook.
I agree, Twitter has changed our lives for the better. Communication between people has improved immensely through social media such as Twitter and Instagram. I remember during the presidential election, Twitter was used to promote the candidates campaign. For me, Twitter is used to say what’s on my mind. Fairly simple to use too, which I enjoy.
I have mixed feelings about this one. Twitter and all other social media platforms are revolutionary and makes it easier to keep in touch with friends and family. Social media, in a way, is ruining personal associations with people because nobody seems to talk and interact face to face anymore. Getting information out as fast as possible is wonderful but you just don’t get that same personal interaction or satisfaction as talking with someone in person.
It seems like Twitter is just a huge community to share ideas, almost as if it’s an infinite off-topic forum page where people share multiple ideas on trendy topics. Although very different, it becomes a lot more useful once you get equipped to it. You can have a fiery discussion on your favorite artist, tweet a pic of your most recent meal, or even give a happy birthday shout out to a special friend. No matter what, Twitter has it.
Some really good points made in this post, but I still don’t feel like joining Twitter anytime soon. Simply because I don’t feel the need or interest to let everyone know what I’m about to do or not do. It feels to me a lot life Facebook, but with less characters. No thanks, I quit Facebook not so long ago, not going back to something similar.
you don’t have to sell twitter to me, I’ve used it since I found out that businesses worldwide have taken to using it themselves to promote their company and stay in touch with their customers. Social media as a whole is becoming unavoidable from a business perspective.
I have twitter but I never use it. all of my friends are on Facebook. You can just do so much more with Facebook. If I didn’t have Facebook than ,yes, I would use twitter. But the amount of words you can type get on my nerves. I am long winded I need a lot of characters. I also do not want to use another app for longer texts. With Facebook I can type how long and play games. Although I do like how quick twitter is and the trending topics.
I just got back on Twitter and I hope that I can use it to get a lot of people to visit my blog.
Of course at the moment I don’t even know who I should follow, where to find people who might be interested in the content I post and get them to follow. It might take a while to figure all that out but I hope that by the end of the year, my blog will be getting some decent traffic from Twitter.