I know people like this...really (Click to enlarge)

This is an ongoing post about Twitter as none of us knows the final answers.

I’ve been fiddling with Twitter for over a year now and have drawn my own conclusions that may help some of you not sure about what this “Twitter thing” is and if you should be on board.

First, it’s a social networking medium, kind of like Facebook or My Space, only smaller.  Much smaller.  140 characters to be exact (including spaces).  You can’t upload videos, have an MP3 play-list, show photos (at least directly) and so on.  Nope, all you can do is write/create a 140 character summation related to something you: just read, will read, have read, are doing, will do, have done, are thinking about doing, want to do, just heard, just saw, just ate, on and on, basically in one sentence.  Basically, for the most part, most posts are stream of consciousness notations.  If your long winded…forget it.

Second it’s an opt-in medium, meaning people have to want to hear what you ate, have to say, think, feel, etc.  In other words, it’s not like posting on a forum, or sending a mass email to a list of people you gathered in some duplicitous manner.  No, people have to in some way be convinced you have something worth reading.  If the do, they choose to “FOLLOW” you.

Of course you can do searches [once you have a Twitter account (free by the way)] and follow anyone on Twitter; President Obama, Ozzie Osbourne, a classmate on Twitter, or just some random person who has a similar interest or preoccupation, say for instance with dorodango.

That said, it really is on the surface can appear to be a pretty pointless medium.

Never-the-less, I have found it very useful in certain areas.  As a web developer/designer, coder, photographer, audio/video content producer and so on in my small corner of the universe, I have developed a Twitter-osophy that so far proven to be very practical in my professional life.

My Twitter-osophy

I have developed my own Twitter rules of engagement, my Twitter-osophy .

1. Don’t use services that promise lots of followers quickly
   • These are wasteful of your time and everyone else’s.  Yes I tried some, and got outa Dodge ASAP. The only people who get mileage from those are….well read rule #2.
2. If anyone starts following me with promises of wealth, or uses words/phrases like “Life Coach”, “SEO Wizard”, “Let me show you how..”, “Make money fast”,  etc.,  I not only do not follow them….I block them.  They’re usually multi-level marketers, scammers, spammers or all three.
3. I only follow people who list a website.  If they don’t fit Rule #2,  then I may visit it.  If anything looks suspicious…BLOCK.  If not then go to Rule #4.
4. I follow fewer people than follow me.  If someone wants to follow one of my Twitter accounts and doesn’t seem to be a Rule #2 or #3 candidate, I leave them on as a follower.  But unless they have something I want to read regularly or information I can use, I don’t follow.  I really don’t care to know you ate a banana for breakfast.

Who should you follow?

I look for people who have similar interests in relation to the topic of the Twitter account.  I have one account for my coffee shop, hence I like to follow and have followers locally (customers) and people in the coffee business.  For my web design company, I am interested in people who I have professional respect for their knowledge and contacts for information in the industry (e.g links to tutorials, placing posts about my own tutorials and so  on).  You get the idea.

MORE LATER AS I THINK OF IT….

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One Response to “What’s Twitter good for (after one year)?”

1. Melanie Bremner Says:
   April 24th, 2010 at 6:00 pm

   Thanks for the enjoyable read. I can feel your pain. For a long while I thought Twitter was a waste of time. I could not see the point of having 22,000 people following me or for me trying to follow them. I have about 800 followers now and I follow about 300. I have a hard enough time trying to keep up with that many. As for people posting what they had for dinner last night, etc. there are enough of them out there. And like you, I have my rules. I will not follow or keep people who do not bother to post a real picture, speak another language, or talk about nonesense.

   Thanks for the laugh. I feel a lot better after reading your post. And although everyone may be on Twiiter today including celebrities and gurus, I still have yet to see anything truly beneficial or profitable from it yet though.

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