Nine great ways to make the most of Twitter (that even Twitter-haters will love)
Twitter is the new social media duh-ling
Just about everywhere you look, it seems everyone is jumping on the Twitter bandwagon. That’s not a bad thing at all. But most people don’t know how to use it. Some people (you know who you are) even roll their eyes when I mention it. ‘How are you supposed to get any juice out of 140 characters?’ Well for all of you eye-rollers, here are some brilliant ways to use Twitter – and believe me, you CAN get serious value out of this nifty little tool.
- Get the latest news before the…uh…news. Hudson River? Plane? Crash? You saw it on Twitter first. That’s if you were on it – well were you? (sniff) Twitterers post the latest news on Twitter faster than the old-school news channels can clamber out of their clunky vans with all their heavy equipment and report ‘live’ an hour later.
- Meet new people. Most people on Twitter are nice. If I was going to NY, and I regularly tweeted with someone on Twitter (and trusted them), I would probably meet up (or tweet up, as they call it). I’ve heard it happening LOADS on Twitter. I think it’s quite cool – makes it the community social media should be. And because you choose who you follow, you’re always going to have something to talk about.
- Manage lots of conversations. For the multi-taskers amongst us – Twitter is pure heaven. You can have 20 conversations at once. And if your friends or colleagues are on Twitter, you can keep in touch easily without hassling each other with constant phone calls. Cheaper too.
- Track buzz. What’s that new Twitter-like application that Microsoft has in Beta at the moment? Well, if you’re on Twitter you’ll know. Look up ANYTHING on search.twitter.com and you’ll find a million conversations about that very topic. Pick the links you want to follow and voila – you’re at the forefront my friend.
- Help your business. If you’re an expert, Twitter can do wonders for your business. People will follow you for your links, advice, tips and anything you’ve got to say. So, it’s fine – once in a while – to promote your blog, product or service. Just please don’t overdo it – you’ll piss everyone off and lose followers in a snap.
- Find top industry blog. Use one of the MANY Twitter tools (you’ll find loads on this blog under Twitter Tools) to search for the industry you work in. You will immediately get access to 1,000s of experts in your particular field. Yes, you COULD just Google ‘experts on Smurfs’ but you don’t get all that additional commentary that proves it’s the bees knees. You can also see how many people are following (and how many people they follow) to get an even better idea of how much kudos they have.
- Start your own microblog or blog. We’re all passionate about something or an expert in some particular field. Maybe you know more than anyone else about beer. Search.Twitter.com is your friend. Plug in your search terms and you’ve got a real-time stream of conversations happening on that topic. Engage. Help. Share your knowledge. You’ll get followers. That’s what I did. And then that made me think, ‘jeepers, I should probably have a blog to record all this Twitter stuff on. And now look – I’ve had over 4,000 visitors in my first month. Nice.
- Advice – travel, money, books, etc. Planning a summer holiday to Mexico? Uh, maybe not. But no matter where you want to go or what you want to do, you’ll find all the news, tips and tools you need on Twitter. The ‘news’ gives you one side of the story but Twitter is like a keleidoscope of sides – you get the full story. So no matter where you’re planning to tan, check it out on Twitter first.
- Spy on your favourite celebrity. I like Wossy. You might like Britney. No one’s holding that against you or anything…but anyway…you can follow your beloved celebrity on Twitter. Laugh at their jokes, share their pain, sing when they’re winning. It’s a beautiful thing…
Told you so
So eye-rollers, you thought twitter was for telling people stuff no one cares about. Well it doesn’t matter to me either that you’re ‘going to the bathroom’.
Twitter is so much more these days. It’s engaging, fun and useful. So sign up, stop complaining and just make damn sure you tweet something interesting or I’ll unfollow you – and then who looks silly?
What’s number 10?
I’ve racked my brain, but there’s not much left of it today. So why not share your ideas on how you use Twitter and we’ll make it a top 10 ways to get the most out of Twitter? We’ll all be grateful (even the eye-rollers).
