Why twitter works for me
A while back I wrote a post stating that I was ready to go back to twitter and give it another chance. I’ve given it a really good go and come to some conclusions about twitter and how it fits into ‘my’ social media mix.
According to wikipedia, “Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that allows users to send “updates” (or “tweets”; text-based posts, up to 140 characters long) to the Twitter website, via short message service (e.g. on a cell phone), instant messaging, or a third-party application such as Twitterrific or Facebook.”
Due to the fact that most of the local folk on twitter are involved in social media or tech development or blogging or similar I’ve found that twitter functions as a cool networking tool for me from a business / industry point of view. (None of my friends even know what twitter is so I haven’t used it as a social chat tool.)
I like the speed that twitter offers and the ‘always on’ aspect – applications like twitterfox and twhirl update my tweets in a subtle manner that allows me to carry on with my work while subconsciously taking in new information. And I do get very valuable information via my twitter network: links to new blogposts and notes on breaking news and industry developments as they occur. It’s allowed me to connect with colleagues and global opinion leaders in a different space (how else would I be able to see what a thought leader like Maggie Fox is experiencing or sharing?) On that point, twitter also serves as a sounding board for opinions as I have direct, immediate access to a ‘panel of experts’ in an easy informal environment.
During the New Media Marketing conference the benefits were huge, as a collective group of twitterers, some would say twits ;P we marked relevant tweets using hastags so that interested parties who couldn’t attend still got a taste of the action as it happened – genius!
I’m a social media enthusiast and I work with social media tools everyday yet I’ve realised that I only require, or can handle a few. My core quotient currently consists of twitter, Facebook, IM and del.icio.us and I’m exploring socialthing! and ma.gnolia.
I’ve found my twitter-value, and shall continue to tweet, it doesn’t replace anything else but rather fills an important niche for me.
What niche / need does twitter fulfil for you?
Explore twitter, follow me at https://twitter.com/melattree
Filed under: twitter | Tagged: socialmedia, twitter, web2.0
I’m only starting to enter the social media and blogging scene professionally. It’s amazing to have contact with the likes of Guy Kawasaki, Shaun Oakes, Stii and Nic Haralambous. These guys are the rockstars of new media in South Africa and abroad, and Twitter lets me follow what they’re working on, thinking about and reading.
My experience of Twitter, so far at least, is that it opens the scene up. At the moment the scene is social media. That’s more or less the only group of South Africans on Twitter at the moment, but I’m sure that’ll change.
More importantly, without Twitter, how would you know what I had for lunch?
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