How I Use Twitter
Have you ever seen someone using Twitter and wondered how they can waste so much time reading about whether their friend had a turkey or chicken sandwich for lunch?? I started using Twitter a couple months ago, and today I received a referral from someone I have yet to meet in person and have only spoken with via Twitter (Thanks, Nathan Maulorico of Unknown Films). I thought this would be a good opportunity for me to reflect on how I use Twitter, and how you might be able to find it useful.
Twitter, for those who don’t know, is a micro-blogging platform. What that means is that every post you make is limited to 140 characters. For example:
I just wrote a post about how I use Twitter to help me connect with other people and how I can get business referalls from people that I have met on Twitter. You can read it at http://conversations.purecaptures.com.
This example, short as it may be, is way too long to be a tweet (that’s what you call a post on twitter). It’s 215 characters. However:
How I use Twitter: http://bit.ly/3DZ7nk
This is short and sweet and makes a perfect tweet! Notice the shortened URL; this heads to the same place as the long ones. Heading to bit.ly gives you a place to auto-generate a short URL to save characters.
Now, enough about how Twitter works; here’s how I use it!
I have a couple main goals on Twitter: connect with people with expertise in my field(s), and connect with people in my region. Twitter’s search function helps me to accomplish both of these goals.
To connect with people in my field, all I have to do is search for tweets with keywords I am interested in. For instance, if I want to find people talking about Twitter tips, I could just search for “twitter tips”. Simple enough. Then I go down the line of results and see who is saying things that actually look interesting. I click on their username and read several past tweets to see if they are consistently posting things that I’d like to know about. If so, I follow them.
To connect with people in my region, Twitter search has a handy tool called Advanced Search. Using the advanced search feature, I don’t even have to search for any keywords. I can scroll down to the place option and search for people within X miles of any location (in my case usually Springfield, MO). Then I follow the same procedure. Browse through the results to see who is saying interesting things and follow those tweeps (twitter people, I know twitter terminology can be pretty riduculous).
Of course, I try to post plenty of useful and interesting information myself so that other interesting people will find and follow me (I don’t want to have to do all the work of expanding my network). In addition, I try to reply to others’ tweets anytime I have something interesting to add to the conversation. These conversations and interactions among people on Twitter are the real gem of the micro-blogging phenomenon. When you interact, you can actually begin to form relationships and genuinely expand the network of people you know. And of course, I never miss out on an opportunity to meet a fellow tweeter in person (after all, who wants to sit behind a computer or blackberry all day?).
One last tip, if you take every opportunity to help others on Twitter pass along important information, your experience will be much richer. Not only will you be able to help others, but you may eventually be known as a resource to get important messages out to your network. This means when people have hot information, you’ll be the first one they come to with it. This is a pretty good place to be.
If you’re new to the Twittersphere, feel free to follow me (@mattblock) and ask any questions along the way to help you get more comfortable and learn how to make Twitter most useful for you.
