Since Twitter is the current social media darling, I thought I’d record a few thoughts I’ve had about one of my favorite online tools. I’ve had the privilege of using Twitter for two years, and each and every person I’ve followed or had follow me along the way has taught me something new. So here we go.
Twitter is…
a place for friends
a news outlet
a place to share your greatest failures & your most stunning achievements
an attention getter
a publishing platform
a customer service tool
a researcher’s dream
vulgar
the ace up your sleeve
brilliant
a new entertainment channel
a social network
a micro-blogging platform
a marketing tool
your community
overwhelming
24x7x365 (always on)
a level playing field for your ideas
a sounding board for your thoughts
a comment reel for your new book
your starting place for your online excursions
the place for your organization to learn about it’s customers
a multicasting instant messenger
a game changer
a PR tool
a messaging infrastructure
a simple way to share & trade information
can be inane
is faster to publish to than anything else
is where you go to learn
your online “water coolerâ€
a conduit into the lives of others
a conduit into the idea stream of smart people
I’ve got a lot more input on what Twitter is than I could fit in this post, so I’ll work on fitting that into another format of some type. What is Twitter to you? I mean, what has Twitter brought to your life that you can’t believe you lived without before you discovered it?
If you’ve been blogging or interacting on social media sites for some time, you’ll know the real reason many people are interesting in social networking. It’s the people of course! The power of social media is in it’s ability to shrink borders, provide publishing & broadcasting platforms, and do so in ways that make it very easy for people to use them.
That’s what I find most interesting about social media, being able to see people meet, plan new things, and build new things. Sure I like to be part of it too, but my goal is to bring people together so they can find the resources, ideas, inspiration or whatever it is that they need. I like seeing people make that next leap, that next step.
Watching it happen with people all over the world is a great thing, but it’s just as fascinating to see it happening on the local level as well. It’s one of the most important aspects of the social web, and one that I believe that is taking parts of it mainstream. I always hesitate to mention “mainstream”, but I see more and more people experimenting, or starting to use some social features on product sites.
It’s great to see that happen, because as our modern neighborhoods have kind of closed in on themselves, becoming safer, more secure, the physical interaction has waned. So it’s great to see people coming back around and getting more interactive online. In doing so, it seems that they really start getting interested in socializing in person as well. So I think it really generates a lot of community building offline as well as online.
Awhile back, I’d started a list of "101 Uses for Twitter", but never seemed to get past 27 for some reason. Of course, it had been last autumn since I brainstormed on it. While I don’t think that I personally could come up with 101 uses, I’m sure there are many more than that.
So I thought about this again for awhile this morning and did think of 50 uses that I’ve seen or participated in. So here is a list of 50 uses for Twitter, I’m thinking of more as I write this, so maybe there is a chance at that "101" post sometime.
Keep in touch with my Twitter peeps friends
General news item links
News & links on my industry or area of interest
Fast answers to quick questions
Professional networking
Links to nearly everything
Marketing
Personal branding
Corporate & product branding
Haiku’s
Making friends
Feel "plugged into the web and it’s various personalities"
Replacement for instant messaging applications
Chat tool
Promotional tool for my blog
Providing new reading opportunities
Fun stuff!
Meeting new, interesting people to communicate with
Collecting links
Finding sites related to social networking
"To listen in on my contacts rants"
A web worker "water cooler"
Micro-blogging
A personal "techmeme"
Lightweight text broadcasting tool
Easy way to annoy your spouse
Promotional tool for my brand
Ranting
Idea generator
No-cost non-profit announcement system
Bring a sense of community to your home office
Tracking status of friends
Status message generator for other social networks
Frustration generator (at least when it is down)
Thought publisher
Promotional tool for my organization
Following public discussions
Travel guide
Controlled discussion between friends
Uncontrolled discussion between friends with viewers
List generator
Meeting agenda generator
Coffee shop locator
People search
Promotional tool for my company
Product reviews
Trip planner
Backchannel for events
Feedback generator
Authentication mechanism
So what are you uses for Twitter? I’m sure I didn’t capture them all, so add your ideas and things you use Twitter for below.
Shel Israel makes the point that blogging is normalizing, and I think he’s right on the mark here. The discussion among several bloggers is that blogging is “cooling off”, or becoming less popular. It may be true, but Shell posits the idea that there are additional social media tools and services that people are migrating to.
The social media webscape has changed in the last two years, not so much because people are becoming less enamored of blogging, but because of additional outlets. Micro-blogging services like Twitter (and Jaiku, Pownce, and Hictu) are making huge changes in the conversation. Social networking sites like the now-booming Facebook, or LinkedIn are bringing new ways to connect, network, and share in the conversation.
He points out that we all enjoy talking about the latest thing, whether its blogging, Facebook, iPhone or Harry Potter. Its what’s new that takes up a large part of the popular conversation and media attention. Many of us still use landline telephones even though we also have mobile phones. The analog clock is still popular even though digital clocks are abundant and easier to read at a glance. We still read newspapers despite radio, television, and the Internet.
Blogging is another medium that, at this point, is maturing. It’s entering that next stage, past fad, where it grows up a bit. Starts getting more respected, more widespread. The determined professional bloggers are what will emerge in the next months and years – many have been with it since the beginning, a decade ago.
As new technologies and ideas of new ways to communicate are developed, the conversation is naturally going to jump onto these platforms. Some will thrive, others will bust, but one thing is for sure. The conversation will continue.
ICYMI: 357 members of Congress, both Republican and Democrat voted AGAINST our resolution to make public the sexual harassment and misconduct records of Congress.
357 Members voted to protect predators. 357 Members voted to protect themselves. 357 Members voted to take part in a
