What does Twitter mean to you?

November 21, 2007

Inspired by Dr. Mani’s question yesterday, here are my thoughts on Twitter.

I’ve been on Twitter for at least two months. It’s a fun little distraction, I’ll admit. Second only to e-mail, it’s the page I load the most when I’m procrastinating. But Twitter has functioned as:

*A Break Room: Working at home is lonely. My husband works at home too, but it’s still lonely. Especially when his eyes glaze over when I talk about SEO, pinging and memes. It’s nice to pop in and catch up on people who are in the same line of work with me. I commiserate with Pamela Troeppl about finishing ebooks, for example. It’s easier than visiting a handful of different forums or going to different blogs (and more justifiable too - see above).  And between Web Word and my Google News feeder, I’ve got plenty of random and interesting sites to visit.

*An Instant Messaging System. There are some folks that I know from around the ‘net that are just easier to reach via Twitter. If I don’t want to try to find an e-mail address or blog location that I’ve bookmarked, I can just direct message them on twitter. For example, I’ve “known” Deborah Ng for a while, but didn’t know her e-mail address. When I needed to reach her yesterday, Twitter worked perfectly.

*A Networking Tool. I knew of Dr. Mani, but never got the chance to speak with him until I joined Twitter. Suddenly, all of these Internet Marketing bigwigs were approachable. And I’ve networked with people that run in the same circles, that I never met before. We all work together, using Twitter, to increase traffic to our sites and encourage one another.  Which brings me to my next point….

*A form of Advertising. I ran a special offer on the Warrior Forum several weeks ago for ghostwriting. Mr Lewis Smile purchased the pack, and let me know that he would have never known about it had it not been for Twitter. I’ve seen people use Twitter to advertise their blogs, ask for a page to be Stumbled Upon and get the word out about a new product. (This works best when you mix in some fun stuff with your advertising - no one likes someone who just promotes things all of the time).

*A way to get close, but not too close. I mention my daughters on Twitter, and talk about my day to day activities. But 140 characters lets me do so without revealing too much about my private life.

*A personal organizer. I’ve linked up my Remember the Milk to do list with  Twitter so it reminds me every morning about what I need to get done that day.

Twitter works best when you can balance interesting tidbits, personal anecdotes and self-promotion.  Besides the people that I’ve mentioned, I also enjoy following HopeWilbanks, imsweetie and dhudiburg.

Posted in Fun Stuff, Link Love, Resources, Organization, Marketing