Twitter is not for everyone. You could say, Twitter is like chocolate. You either love it or you can do without it.
When I first visited Twitter, I didn't "get it." I thought it was a bunch of useless chatter about nothing that pertained to me. I followed a few people who talked about standing in lines, waiting for lights to change, who was ahead of them at the checkout and what they bought at the grocery store. Not to mention the hundreds of posts about people's choices for breakfast.
I mean, it was so bad, I signed up, followed a few people and then didn't visit it again for some time.
And then a friend coached me on how to use Twitter and some of the possibilities. He shared with me how and who you could meet. And follow. Twitter is like legal stalking *smile. You can find thought leaders and follow them, engage in conversations and probably more important to your business, get them interested in YOU, by being interested in THEM.
In fact, having seen first hand what it can do for my business, I am now a twitter advocate.
So I started using Twitter. Not to share mundane information. One of the things my friend - whom I now call my twitter mentor - taught me was to post the headline or topic of a blog post on twitter and see what happens. I did that and have had people click on the link in the post and read my blogs. How do I know? They tell me... when they leave comments. Some of the comments include "thanks for posting this on Twitter, and "thanks, I am so happy to find your blog." And more.
Of course, without followers, posting is probably pointless so I also recommend you get to know other Twitter'ers, post your Twitter URL on your blogs and sites and if you want, here. I would love to know what some of you are up to, as long as you don't tell me what you had for breakfast (unless it pertains to a bigger picture), I may just follow you for awhile.
My Twitter page is http://twitter.com/heidirichards.
If you are a skeptic, I recommend you read “The Secret to Twitter” by Robert ‘the Scobliezer’ Scoble.
And another interesting post about how you can use Twitter as a real-time business sales and marketing can be found at: http://www.smstextnews.com/2008/04/using_twitter_as_a_real_time_business_sales_marketing_service.html
I tried to find some stats to share with you about the number of users on Twitter. I do recall that it hit critical mass around mid-February with a million users. So it's not some little thing anymore with just a few users.
However, Twitter is not for everyone.
Heidi
(ps. this post was first shared with A Bit of Humble Pie - a network on Ryze led by Eileen Brown. You can find out more about Eileen at http://www.ryze.com/view.php?who=VerbatimEB
4 comments:
Heidi, there is also a site called Twitterfeed where you go in and enter your blog feeds and Twitterfeed will "feed" your blog post to twitter! So your blogs post automatically!
It's great to get your blogs noticed and automatic once you set it up.
Like PopArtDiva I also use TwitterFeed. I'm not yet fully across how it could work for me, but at least, with my many blogs, it's being updated regularly and periodically I remember to pop back in!
Great Post. I will give it a 2nd look. I admit I do not get twitter at all right now. I signed up, but do not understand where to go from there. I'll dig a bit deeper, starting with your twitter.
Heidi, this was a great topic to be discussed. I recently joined Twitter but did not understanding the purpose. It comes highly recommend from other professional bloggers but there was no clear understanding of the purpose. It sounds like a great marketing tool, I will also start to participate and begin by following you too.
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