Twitter: who, and what, is it good for?

What is Twitter?
Explaining Twitter is difficult, and explaining the value even more so, because as Robert Scoble is fond of saying ‘Everyone’s Twitter experience is different’.

Here’s a link to my Twitter profile - come say hello, and check out Twitter for yourself!

In a nutshell, you sign up for Twitter and find people to follow. You can post short updates to Twitter of 140 characters. Once you follow someone you see all their updates. If they in turn follow you, they can see yours. If you are mutually following each other you can also send direct messages to each other that no one else sees.

Everyone’s experience will differ depending on who they are following, who follows them (and so converses with them) and how they choose to interact with people on Twitter.

It can be used for self promotion, to keep up with others in your industry, or for entertainment. I’ve heard people proclaiming it’s wonderful for keeping up with breaking news, finding job opportunities and even finding romance!

Self Promotion
Self promotion seems to be a popular reason for using Twitter, but in my opinion the vast majority of people get it wrong.

The best way to promote yourself on Twitter is not by constantly linking to your own blog posts, but rather to engage in conversation and have something meaningful or helpful to say. This will result in people checking out your profile page and subsequently your website. Twittering is often referred to as ‘micro-blogging’ and as such the same rules apply in terms of raising your profile and becoming recognised as an expert in your field.

Another way to promote yourself on Twitter is to monitor Twitter for mentions of your company or your name and respond to people who praise or criticise you. Respond in a meaningful and helpful way and you will begin to build a reputation as a company/individual who is listening, available and ready to respond.

What I use Twitter for…
For me, I used it to get an insight into what was happening in the tech & web design industry in Ireland, and to keep my finger on the pulse.

Twitter allowed me to very quickly obtain a window into the Irish tech and web design industries and see who was who and who was doing what.

In order to do that, I found people I knew - such as Tom Raftery or Donncha O’Caoimh - and I checked who they in turn followed, then if I recognised any names, faces or companies I followed them too.

I then watched what they were saying and anyone who cropped up in conversation repeatedly in interesting conversations, I followed.

Soon I had my window into the Irish online world. I found this extremely useful for getting a quick snapshot of what was going on.

The echo chamber effect.
Within a short space of time, I realised I needed to expand my window to peer into more than just the Irish industry - once I had soaked up a good overall idea of who was who and who was doing what, the daily Tweets began to lessen in value.

I have now begun to follow anyone at all who I come across who seems to have something of value to say.

Change is good, don’t let your Twitter experience stagnate.
Despite the fact that I follow a small number of people by general standards, I think in order to address the signal to noise ratio, I will have to begin to ‘unfollow’ people.

Somehow though, it feels rude to stop following someone, as it may be interpreted as an insult. of course, it’s not a personal slight if I unfollow someone, it’s just that their input isn’t currently in keeping with what I am trying to get out of Twitter - the onus is on me, not them.

My instinct is that for Twitter to be of value it must be a shifting experience. Follow the signal, unfollow the noise, and what I perceive as signal today may be noise tomorrow. But do I have the patience and the time to manage a Twitter experience in this way?

Is Twitter a distraction, or a valuable tool?
Already I find Twitter to be another attention drain - does the value to be had from Twitter really justify the distraction it causes?

Hugh MacLeod deleted his Twitter account because he felt it was ‘too easy’ and his time would be better spent doing more productive things - of course he subsequently signed up again and is twittering away to beat the band… what does that say about the Twitter experience?

My experience of Twitter has been positive, because it gives me a much needed quick glimpse of what’s going on in my industry - but then my industry by it’s nature, lives online.

Is Twitter just another attention drain? And what industries other than tech have found it useful, or even just entertaining?

This entry was posted on Friday, April 25th, 2008 at 9:27 am and is filed under Social Media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.