Introduction: What is Twitter?

Twitter has become a major internet phenomenon, so much so that there is even a cell phone commercial that makes fun of parents using Twitter at the chagrin of their teenagers. Twitter has definitely become main stream.

Twitter is a social networking site called a micro-blog. Blog posts, called tweets, can only be 140 characters long, so you have to become adept at getting your point across in the least amount of words.

Twitter is being used by celebrities, brick and mortar businesses, online businesses, internet marketers, causes, and special interests such as crafting, fishing, gardening, and global warming. Politicians are even getting on the band wagon. For example, President Obama used Twitter for publicity by providing updates on his presidential campaign. If there is a niche that you are interested in, there are probably people on Twitter who share your interest.

Anyone can open a Tweeter account (it's free), and you can have more than one account. People who chose to read your tweets are called your followers. You also choose to follow other people. You can read their tweets and your followers can read yours.  You can check out the tweets of someone and decide if you want to follow them.  You can also see how many people they are following, how many people are following them, and their list of "followees" and followers.  Access to this information makes it easy to find people you might want to follow.

Keep in mind that almost everything in Twitter is public, to include tweets and lists of followers. You can, however, choose to make your tweets private so that people have to request access. This feature makes Twitter useful for group collaboration. However, tweets from members of the group may be visible by their followers, so you might want to consider creating private member accounts just for group participation.

The basic question Twitter asks is "What are you doing?" People will share what their eating for dinner, what movie they're going to see, or even that they're walking their dog (you can set up your account to send updates through your cell phone). However you're not limited to this basic question. Twitter is being used to share ideas, promote products, ask questions, provide updates, and share just about anything. You're only limited by your imagination.

Twitter is not for everyone. Some people can't fathom why anyone would want to share or read about the everyday stuff that happens in life.  But there are people who do want to know. People are fascinated with other people.  It's human nature. Just think about all the tabloids and magazines that are just about people. There is definitely a "market" for people. Also think about all the magazines that cover different subjects. If there's a magazine on a topic, there are more than likely tweets about the subject too.

I hope this introduction helps you understand what Twitter is and the possibilities of using Twitter. I encourage you to open an account on Twitter and start checking it out. Oh and by the way, you can follow me too. Just search for my user name, allenyoli. I'll follow you back.

Happy Business Building,

Yoli