Tweet

What is Twitter, Really?

Guest post by: Andy Crestodina

Article Overview: Imagine you're sitting at a desk, staring at a new piece of technology. It's a type of tool that allows you to communicate in new ways. It connects people instantly. It's supposed to be better than the older tools. Everybody's talking about it. They say you should use it but you're not sure how or why...

What is Twitter, Really?

Imagine you're sitting at a desk, staring at a new piece of technology. It's a type of tool that allows you to communicate in new ways. It connects people instantly. It's supposed to be better than the older tools. Everybody's talking about it. They say you should use it but you're not sure how or why... ...the year is 1910 and the device is a telephone.

There's the phone on your desk. Should you use it? It's a silly question, isn't it? You don't use a phone unless you actually have a good reason. Twitter is the same thing. Just like that phone, without a reason to use it, what's the point?

To understand why you may want to use Twitter, you need to know what it is and what you can do with it. Then you might find you have a reason to try it.

So what is Twitter?

Twitter is a "platform-independent-social-networking-microblogging service"...sounds fancy. But when you break it down into its functions, it's actually very familiar. When you look at the uses of Twitter you see the ways in which it's really just like old technology. Twitter is:

* A giant phone book

* A tiny radio station

* A party line

Twitter is a giant phone book

For finding people it may even be more powerful than Facebook, Google, and LinkedIn, because you can find people who are thinking about specific things, people with specific, real-time intentions, and people with very specific interests. Let's try playing with Twitter's advanced search to find some people...

* Who is asking about wine within five miles of my ZIP code? (10 people)

* Who is unhappy about snowmobiles? (5 people)

* Who is talking about tango dancing in Russian? (11 people)

Not bad! But wait, there's more. Just like the Yellow Pages, it's also a tool to be found. By adding keywords to your bio, and adding hashtags to topics in your tweets (that's the "#" before certain words), you make yourself more findable. In other words, just like a phone book, Twitter is a research and networking tool.

If you want to find people in a giant, up-to-the-second phone book, use Twitter.

Twitter is a tiny radio station

Some radio stations are entertaining, others are informational. Some stations produce their own shows, some just play the shows of others. In this same way, Twitter is a tool to broadcast information, be it personal or professional, yours or someone else's, mundane or profound.

Many tweets are simply tiny announcements, either original or shared (using RT or "Retweet"). The sum of all these announcements is the character of each person's little radio station. If people like you and your station, they'll tune in and subscribe (follow). Want to invite people to a public event? Want to give some general advice? Want to share something interesting you found? These are all reasons to send a broadcast tweet.

If you've got something to broadcast, or if you want to listen to the broadcasts of others, use Twitter.

Twitter is a party line

Most Twitter users have probably never used a party line. But back in the day, before one household had five phone lines, five or more households had one phone line! Anyone who picked up could join in the conversation. Hard to imagine, isn't it? Not really. It's happening on Twitter right now.

Many say the true usefulness of Twitter, like all good things online, is this kind of two-way communication. The dialog. Yes, Twitter can be one-to-one communication by using DM or "Direct Message" in your tweets. This is a lot like a regular phone call.

But most conversation on Twitter is many-to-many communication. By using @ or "Mentions" in your tweets, they can be directed at certain people, but viewed by anyone. This lets you have a conversation that others listen to and join. So it's actually just like those old party line phones from decades ago. Just open your browser, listen in and join the call.

In other words, Twitter isn't just a place for one-way broadcasts. It's useful for all sorts of broad-reaching conversation. You can ask and answer questions, give and get advice, chat, gossip and discuss pretty much anything.

If you want to talk on a huge party line, use Twitter.



Should you use Twitter?

Twitter is powerful, capable of sparking revolutions, overthrowing governments and announcing what kind of sandwich you're eating. Should you use it? Maybe! Maybe not.

The true nature of Twitter is that it is a connector of people. But just like that phone, don't use it unless you have a good reason - you want to find specific people, create a tiny radio station or talk on a party line.

If you're not using it yet, don't feel bad. Don't start using it just because you're afraid you're getting left out. First, think about what you're trying do to. Pick your purpose, and then consider what tools will help you achieve it. If you want to find people, broadcast something, or have public conversations, Twitter might be perfect.

Related Articles
  You're Addicted to Twitter If You..
  How Twitter can have a postive effect on your business
  Blogging, Articles and Twitter - A Powerful Marketing Combination
  Is Twitter For The Birds?
  Four Easy Twitter Tools to Supplement Your Marketing
  Why Twitter?
  Wanna Know How To Increase Twitter Followers?
  Avoid These 5 Twitter Mistakes
  How to Use Twitter for Business
  Twitter Tips: The Secrets You Should Know
  Twabulous Twitter Tools
  Writers Not Allowed to Use "Tweet" Word
  Legal Marketing: Why use Twitter?
  Twitter Tools: The Definitive List of the Best Twitter Tools Ever
  Read On Book Review ~ twitter Revolution
  More Twitter Followers
  Is Twitter on their last “tweet”?
  Twitter - What is twitter, and how can I use Twitter as a business tool?
  Use Twitter to Generate an Income?
  Twitter Quick Tips

Article Tags: social connections, social media, twitter, web communication



Related Forum Posts
Re: Using Twitter To Double Your Traffic? - I'm sure in many cases Twitter sends more traffic than Search Engines because most people don't have good enough SE rankings to get SE traffic. But anyone can get Twitter traffic. The problem is that Twitter traffic won't convert for the most part and SE traffic will. I'd venture to say that 98% of the time getting just 100 visitors from search is better than getting 2000+ from Twitter.
How to Use Twitter to Market Products? - How do you use Twitter to market products? Has the Twitter route given you good results? Please share your experience and ideas on how to use Twitter to take a product to the customers. Thank you in advance.
Re: Social Media Works If You Do It Right... - Hi Michelle, Ah, but it seems hashtags are still being used by a lot of people - including Twitter! So I would still use them for your keywords. It's just that if you are searching for something on Twitter you can either go the #hashtag route, or do a direct search on the Twitter homepage. I guess you could use #hashtags when searching on the Twitter homepage as well! DH
Re: Facebook or Twitter? - Thanks for the feedback guys! I personally started with Twitter and am now moving over to Facebook. I polled people on both my accounts and (not surprisingly) the Twitter people said Twitter and the Facebook people said Facebook! The actual order of my social media presence looks like this: 1) LinkedIn (with little success) 2) Twitter 3) YouTube 4) Facebook
Re: Twitter vs Facebook - I use Facebook pages for Business and rarely ever use Twitter. I hace lost count of the no. of Hotels that I have visited, regarding their marketing campaigns, that may have 5k Facebook Fans and only 100 followers on Twitter. It is a lot more difficult to engage with people on Twitter and thus harder to gain traction. If you are a business like Nike, then Twitter is great, but if you are an SME, then focus on Facebook or LinkedIn (if you are providing a professional service.) You can always have your Facebook feed directly in to Twitter, so you can have a presence on both, but do the work on one. Also check out ping.fm for managing campaigns - it is a free tool, and a great time saver.


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

Let's Skip the Offshore Horror Stories

Work at Home Moms and Their Bad Rap?

Qualities of Leadership Part 1

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.