What’s The Big Deal About Twitter, and Scary News About Akismet
So, you’ve been hearing about Twitter and wondering what the big fuss is about. Am I right? You read the right blogs and all of these important and successful people are talking about how damn amazing it is, and you just don’t get how it will help your home business.
Well, here is the official IttyBiz synopsis:
I officially got onto twitter in January with a tweet that read:
“Figuring out how the fuck to use this thing.”
This was followed two days later with:
“Still don’t get it. I’ll follow Maki. He gets it. Or he fakes it well.”
Not an auspicious beginning. I then spent a few half hearted weeks sitting around going, “I don’t get it”. Then I did nothing for a while. What got me to finally check it out was a combination of two things. One, Michael Martine (@remarkablogger) blogged about it. I have it on good authority that Michael is: a.) above the age of 17, b.) a very busy person who is unlikely to promote MySp***-like uselessness on his blog.
(See how I blocked that word out? Remember when I said that a certain occasion would be the first, last, and only time I would use that word on my blog? All about keeping the promises.)
Two, James Chartrand (@menwithpens) is addicted. I wanted to go on and prove that I was better than him and was not likely to get addicted to some stupid online app.
Guess what, folks? I’m addicted. I’m not too proud to admit it. I’m a big girl.
So here’s the deal, as far as I can tell.
1. Twitter is fun.
However, Twitter is only fun when there is stuff going on around you. If you are only following four people, there’s just only so much going on. They’re all having conversations with people you don’t know, and you’re only reading their end. Not exactly my favorite way to spend a Saturday night.
Takeaway point: Follow lots of people, and hang out on Twitter when they are hanging out on Twitter. There are times when it’s awesome and dynamic and like a big party with only the people you like in attendance. There are times when it’s like sitting in a room where a party was recently held but the attendees have passed out on the floor. Avoid the latter, cultivate the former.
2. Twitter is pretty good marketing.
However, Twitter is only pretty good marketing in the same way that any offline networking event is pretty good marketing. You meet people. Some of them are cooler than you. Some of them are less cool than you. Some of them might eventually want whatever wares you’re hawking. Some of them won’t. Some of them will read your blog. Some of them won’t. But it gets you on the radar and it gets you in a situation in which you and they are hanging out in an unstructured and fun environment. Blogging ain’t exactly formal either, but compared to Twitter, blogging is the goddamn coronation.
Takeaway point: Be yourself, and don’t be slimy. If they like you, awesome — it’s one more person you don’t have to bust your ass at impressing later. If they hate you, they were going to hate you anyway. Might as well get the hate-and-be-hated thing out of the way sooner, oui?
3. Twitter is like crack.
If you do not find this to be true, you’re not following the right people.
If you would like to follow me on Twitter, my ID is IttyBiz. You should. Then I’ll feel cool and popular.
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In other news, it has come to my attention that some people’s comments are not getting picked up and are ending up in Akismet. This is scary, because when I went to check, there were 26 comments currently in Akismet, four of which were valid comments from people I already knew. Before that, there were over 1500 comments which had already been deleted. God knows who they were from.
If you’re commenting and it’s not showing up right away, please, please, please send me an email at naomi@ittybiz.com or submit something using my contact form. Thank you. I appreciate it.
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Next Post: How To Avoid Running Your Mouth Off Online
I will note one thing about Twitter:
It’s fun and I was enjoying it… Until I accepted over 30 people to follow. Suddenly, I’m facing pages and pages of comments if I step away from the computer for half an hour. Not fun. Not cool. Very overwhelming and last night, I was saying to Harry, “That’s it. I quit.”
I didn’t quit yet, but I’m considering it.
My suggestion: If you have back and forth conversations with one person, keep them private if they aren’t something everyone can jump into or if they don’t offer value to the group.
Twitter isn’t a chat platform, and turning it into that creates LOTS of filler that doesn’t have to be.
Make comments fun, insightful, thoughtful, inspiring or interesting to ALL. One-on-one conversations that last longer than a few back and forths should be taken to email or to instant messenger chat.
That’s my two cents.
Over 17? Yes, thank you for making me fell old. Well, you picked up on the gist of Twitter real quick, so that’s cool. See? That’s what I like about you: quick study.
I like the party analogy for Twitter. We all know a lot of business gets done and a lot of deals get made at parties. It is fantastic branding/marketing/exposure.
@ James - It’s true there will be increased noise-to-signal when you follow more people. Using the web version that doesn’t instantly update and ding at you makes it easier in some ways, but even with a program like Twhirl, you can change settings and filter tweets. Some people offer more value in their tweets than others, so when the traffic spikes, I just scan through the list looking for my favorite people (two of which are you and Naomi, natch).
James, what if you didn’t worry about seeing everything? If you just stepped into the chatter when you felt like it and stepped out again without stressing?
There are a few people I really like, but they tweet too much for me to follow. Chris Brogan leaps to mind. I may start following him again, he is so danged smart, but holy cow that is a lot of twitters.
I like Twitter, I post a few updates a day. Since I don’t post on the blog every day, I mostly see Twitter as a way to get my smiling little face in front of folks.
I’m not exactly addicted, but the party analogy works perfectly for me. In large crowds I’m not the type of guy to jump right in and start talking, sitting back and observing suits me just fine. So far, it’s working.
I just signed up for Twitter yesterday because Caroline Middlebrook and Darren Rowse had said enough good things about it. I thought it sounded pretty stupid, but maybe it’s stupid and necessary. We’ll see.
As an introvert, Twitter is far more appealing to me than a roomful of strangers. I follow one tweet via RSS, but that’s it so far. Ya’ll are inspiring me to dive in a little deeper.
i signed up months ago because a friend begged me to sign up. I am still thinking i dont get it’ - but now that you are there, maybe i will follow you and it will be more interesting? i tend to get addicted to technology - maybe i just dont know the right people to follow on this here twitter thing… ;)
As I said to Harry, I paradoxally (does that word even exist in english ?!?) reinvested my twitter account after his first post about how stupid and useless it was. And like Naomi I thought “No way I can get addicted to that thing”… well I spent most of my afternoon twittering away…
I agree with James and Michael about the short and insightful comments that everyone can relate to. If we use twitter as a vector for private jokes only, we’ll never meet anyone new…
That said, thanks to Naomi, Michael, Jon, Harry, James and others who are following me, I’ll try and make my comments… erm… short and insightful :P
I signed up a couple weeks ago. I resisted for a very long time because I didn’t get it. I don’t have time enough to form an addiction with it, but I’ll say it is amusing.
Well EVERYONE is talking about twitter lately, aren’t they (I’m planning on it myself… just haven’t written my post yet, lol).
I too was confused about it at first - I’ve been on for a while, and am really liking it these last few weeks! It can be quite addictive, so important to shut it off when you actually have to do a thing called work, lol.
But yeah - it’s fun and you can get lots of info from it, too! I definitely recommend it! :)
@ James — I’m with Sonia. Try to ignore, I think. Hard to believe Scobleizer has like, 15,000.
@ MM — If over 17 is old, we’re all screwed.
@ Sonia — I got on this morning and the entire screen was tweets between two people. I’m all for a little @ symbol every now and again, but when it reaches a page, it’s a bit much. Yowza.
@ Harrison — Indeed. There is wisdom in knowing when to sit back and shut up. See tomorrow’s blog rant. Did I say rant? I meant post.
@ Hunter — I’m going to steal “stupid but necessary.” Will accredit appropriately. :-)
@ Practical Archivist — The key and beautiful difference between Twitter and parties is that you seldom get chatted up by inappropriate, drunk men. And nobody gives a shit what you do for a living. Always a nice plus.
@ Kate — I think that’s the thing. Follow the right people and ditch the boring ones. [She says, with all of three days of Twitxperience.]
@ Joohliah — I think that’s what makes it perfect. With the character limit, as long as people don’t tweet five in a row, makes short a necessity. Bring your own insight, I guess, but it’s hard to legislate that! :-)
@ some other Naomi — I’m lucky because I’m terrified of technology, so I just keep it open in a browser window. If I got notifications or something I’d probably shoot myself. Good for you for knowing you don’t have the time. All of us should be that self-aware.
@ Selene — Work? I’m afraid I’m not familiar with that word.
How cool is this: I found this post b/c James posted it in Twitter! Talk about good blog marketing :)
I just make twitter my default browser page, and so I will send a little tweet and look at the page of tweets when I need to open a new window. Works for me.
If I actually tried to *follow* Twitter, I would lose my mind. And I only follow something like 35 people.
Scoble has some interesting brain disease that lets him do this stuff. :)
@ RLD — Welcome to IttyBiz! It’s nice to have you. @MenWithPens is the top pimp on my list.
@ Sonia — Speaking of following, it’s funny how some people really take the “what are you doing” thing seriously. I feel like I’m actually following them. Like, following them around their house. And Scoble is kind of like Skellie or Leo. Superhuman and not worth comparing yourself to. I tell myself daily: “You can’t do it so don’t try. You can’t do it so don’t try.” It’s a good mantra.
Twitter is like crack. I had never thought of it that way but it’s true. Thanks for putting your Twitter ID in the post, I guess it makes it easy since you are branding yourself. I have started following you too. I recently wrote a post about how to use Twitter on my site if you are interested.
@ Koka — Thanks for the follow! What’s the url for the post? You can whore it out in the comments.
Naomi~
Thanks so much for the comment on my blog! It took me a few moments to figure out what ZH stood for, and how you’d found me. :D In response to the post: I agree with Selene above, it seems like everyone is talking about Twitter these days. I tried it for a few days a few months ago, and didn’t ‘get’ it. If I had something to say, why not just post it on the blog? Maybe I’ll have to reexamine the whole thing. I like the business party analogy. Having worked in theatre for five years, but never applied for a position, I fully understand how wonderful, and lucrative, networking can be.
@ Margot — Having spent the evening drinking Shiraz, playing Rock Band, and Tweeting, I think I have the new secret. Keep it irrelevant. Nobody’s really blogging about anything, they’re just party chatting. But it’s not nearly as annoying as it sounds. Come! It’s fun!
@ Margot — PS. Thanks for coming! It’s nice to have you!
I don’t know about adding Twitter to the mix. Seems like I have enough on my plate already. I check so many social networks and blogs and websites daily, the day goes by really fast.
Having said that, I used to say the same thing about facebook before I joined, so never say never.
Hi Naomi
I love Twitter too. I follow about 100 people - it’s my max, if I go over that my brain freezes. Some people do tweet way too much and I have to unfollow for a while even if they’re (in theory) ‘interesting’.
People I’m most likely to follow are those who are conersational, who talk to me and others in a friendly, low key way.
My favourite time of day is what I call European time (though of course it picks up v. early birds in the states and night owls in Australia) - a slower pace, friendly desultory chat over coffee.
Anyway, it’s definitely worth an experiment - and worth giving it a few weeks to get used to it.
Joanna