Several people have asked me why I decided to sign up for Twitter. It's a good question--the first time I visited the Twitter website, I thought, "What possible good is this? Who cares what I'm doing right now? And why would I care what anybody else is doing right now?" That was my not-so-inner hermit speaking.
But at the Las Vegas conference, I heard a terrific presentation about the value of Twitter as a business development and PR tool, and it really opened my eyes. When I got back from Vegas, I went to the website, signed onto Twitter, and began tweeting. I've also downloaded the application to my Blackberry so I can tweet when away from my computer. As I watch the communications between people on Twitter, I'm amazed at the information that gets shared--websites to check out for great PR and marketing tips, people exchanging info on great conferences and webinars, posts about job openings and help wanted, and so on.
The Twitter site is designed to allow you to "follow" people who are in your field--so if you have an interest in civil rights, mysteries, restaurants, PR and marketing or whatever, you can enter that topic and get a list of Twitterers in that field. So you can interact with people in the fields that are of particular interest to you. I've also found that when you decide to "follow" certain people (that means you get their communications), they usually reciprocate and "follow" you, so your Twitter network grows very quickly.
One of the best things about Twitter is that you are allowed a maximum of 140 characters to convey your message. This forces a person to be concise and prevents "ranting." For those who use Twitter for business purposes, this can mean something as simple as "I just posted a new blog, please check it out and let me know your thoughts," or "I just visited a great website, take a look at it at www.greatwebsite.com," or "Wow, did you see the new commercial for Guzzle Light Beer? It was hilarious!" It is conversational marketing--when you think about it, quite a revolutionary concept, and very different from the traditional approach utilizing costly ads and TV spots.
Anyway, the jury is still out on whether I find Twitter to be of value over the long haul. I have a hunch that it is what you make of it, and if it doesn't do much for me, it may be that I'm just not making the best use of it. But you never know unless you try, right??
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What you say about the 140 character limit is interesting, Marsha, because I tend to have the opposite reaction to that fact--I tend to think that it encourages overly-general, rather arbitrary nonsense. It seems to promote insubstantial thinking.
ReplyDeleteTake, for example, the president's recent "State of the Union Address." During this event, certain congresspeople were twitting (or whatever it's called) such things as "...I just sent a shout-out to Ruth Bader-Ginsburg." Well, I'm glad she's doing well, too, but we simply don't need a congressperson twitting that to us. It's useless and strikes me as being juvenile and narcissistic.
That, I think, is my biggest problem with this phenomenon: it somehow suggests that people's relatively random thoughts are worthwhile to the rest of society. I disagree. What seems to me to be worthwhile is when people take some of their random thoughts and construct something practical out of them, which means that they build upon them and present what they've built in an impressive and thoughtful manner.
Then again, I've never found conversational marketing to be interesting; I find it dull. What sells me on something is a thoughtful argument as to why I ought to give that thing my attention. If someone twitted me "did you see that hilarious beer commercial?," I wouldn't care. If, on the other hand, they took the time to let me know why seeing a particular commercial was worthwhile, I might keep my eye out for it. But for me, the "why" needs to be included in the initial sales-pitch. Otherwise, it's a bit childish in that it's just like someone saying, "Did you see that car? Do you see that bird? Do you want to hear me talk about other random stuff?"
I realize, however, that a big percentage of society sees things much differently than me; they like the quick sloganeering and tend to roll their eyes at what they probably see as "boring" argument construction. That doesn't make them worse or better than me, just different. For them, Twitter must be like eating a piece of candy, because it lets them sift through what amounts to a lot of very quick commercials, whereas for me it's like eating the air--there's no substance to it, so why bother?