Twitter and Why I Find It Useful

Chances are if you a frequent surfer of the online world you have probably come across the term Twitter.  You may or may not know what Twitter is all about but I for one find the service really useful, not only to have another way of communicating with other people in my industry but also to find out the new online trends or even world happenings.

I find that I have people asking me periodically what Twitter is and why do I use it. I have also had people poke fun at me for using Twitter but I find that those people are ignorant in the way Twitter can be useful.

What Is Twitter?

Twitter is a form of micro-blogging [wiki]. You can think of it as Facebook Status updates but these are a bit more appealing to people. With Twitter you can send up to 140 characters per ‘tweet’. This tweet is then sent out to your followers. A tweet can be anything you can fit within the 140 character limit.

Not only can you send regular tweets but you can reply to tweets in particular which also helps notify the person the tweet was targeted at. You can also send direct messages (DM) to people who are following you. This is great when you want to ask or say something to someone without other people seeing it.

Flickr Photo: Robert Scoble

Now followers might sound a bit odd but followers are people who are interested in what you have to say. Followers are usually people in the same industry or niche in which you blog or are a part of in general.

To Follow or Not to Follow

That is a question that seems to go around quite a bit. Who do you follow? Do I follow those who follow me? I find that some people will auto-follow you when you follow them. I tend to follow those who are in my line of work or share similar interests to me. If you’re part of the Metro Vancouver area I will most likely follow you too. After all Twitter is a great for social networking within your region. It is also a great way to promote yourself too.

Though be careful who you follow. If you follow hundreds of people you might find that Twitter can be a bit spammy, depending on the frequency of tweets the people you follow send out. I currently seem to follow about 200-250 people, which to me seems like quite a bit. I notice during somewhat regular business hours I get about 13-15 tweets every couple of minutes. Reading all of those might be a bit time consuming. If you find yourself reading the tweets on Twitter too much you might find yourself a bit less productive in your work day. If you do find this happening I recommend perhaps culling through your following list.

Twitter Etiquette

Some etiquette I find when you are using Twitter is the following:

• Ensure you have a Bio, Location and URL for your Twitter profile – Most people will not follow you in return if you do not provide this information.
• Don’t just spam out URLs all the time – Unless of course you are some sort of news company then I would assume that is what you are expecting.
• Try to interact with others – I like to see people engaging in conversation (a bit limited yes at 140 characters) on Twitter. Makes me feel better too if I send a tweet and you answer.
• If someone tweets something you find interesting or important and you want others to know about it please re-tweet it.
• Be sure to use some service for shortening your URLs such as TinyURL or Snipit. On that note please also check your shorten URL works too.

These I believe are the basics of Twitter Etiquette, I am sure other people will have some thoughts into what they believe is good practice when using Twitter. If there is something I am missing I’d like to hear it.

Why I find Twitter Useful

I find Twitter to be very useful and it has helped me out quite a bit. Twitter has provided me with a way to get local and world news while it happens. This is great when I seem to be out of the loop on these things. If something in the world of news happens, you can be sure you will find out about it really quick via Twitter.

If I have a question that I can not seem to solve. I have over 350 people to ask via Twitter. Every questions I have had to ask has always been answered in one form or another. This is great when I ask something in which I need to the answer to pretty quick.

Social Networking. There is that term again, Social Networking. A great place to meet people that share your interests or are in the same industry as you. Not only that it also allows to set up meetings, a get together and more. If I’m looking to have lunch with someone or grab a quick bite to eat I can easily ask via Twitter who is near me and available. Of course this would only work with local followers but it does work great.

Generating buzz about a new product, or perhaps a blog post is something Twitter is also good and producing, especially if you can get it re-tweeted amongst your followers.

Twitter can be used while on the road. With the use of my Apple 3G iPhone I can take Twitter with me (via Twitterific). You can use Twitter with pretty much most smart phones too. They do have support for SMS (text messaging) though this might change in the near future for North Americans. Robyn likes to poke fun at me occasionally as I like to check Twitter sometimes a bit too often when we are out of the house.

How do you find the usefulness of Twitter? If you are not already doing so I would recommend following me on Twitter.