Why Twitter Is Not Stupid!
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I just read Mark Butler’s post ‘Twitter is Stupid‘ on Courtney Tuttle’s blog. Woohoo, it’s creating dust already!
I do not agree with Mark, but I certainly can relate to some of the objections he has about Twitter.
Before going in to that, let me admit that I’ve managed to limit my time on social networking by setting a certain time schedule for visiting Twitter. If I can’t make it, I’ll skip Twitter and that happens quite often.
Also, when I use Twitter, or any other social network platform, I like to make sense with my remarks or shut my mouth, with the exception of a rare occasional chitchat.
Having said that, let’s go back to Mark’s post.
For starters, his remark about ‘nothing meaningful is being said’ is true. And boy, I see a lot of those tweets.
Maybe they could mean something for someone else, especially when you’re communicating with someone you personally know?
I’m sort of playing the the devil’s advocate here, but I should admit Mark is right: there’s a lot of irrelevant data most people have little or no interest in.
Therefore I scan the tweets with Twhirl. After using it for a while, you’ll get experienced in picking the interesting tweets out of the huge batch of information. I recommend using this tool.
Another one you can try is Quotably. It tries to thread the tweets, so you can follow a conversation. It’s not working perfectly, but worth to try.
Next.
The politically correct phrased objection ‘twitter is something the A List bloggers are promoting as a way to get their groupies to follow them’ is also true to a certain extent, although you can also say that they are ‘trying to increase their own community and build a bigger network’.
They, too, want to get something out of it, like poll results, other forms of opinions and even great content. But what’s against that? It’s not mandatory, they give you a choice, don’t they?
Using exactly this strategy, one of my posts ended up at Darren Rowse’ Problogger.net. I was quite happy with that bit of extra exposure.
The second part of that objection is ‘begging (the followers) for a shred of acknowledgment with some sort of “@joeshmoe” response to a….tweet ‘.
Yeah, some do that and I don’t like it either. The A-blogger can’t help it, only recognize it.
But so many others deliver valuable responses. And it definitely is a two-way process. Only yesterday, I had Maki of DoshDosh.com subscribe to my feed as a result of my response to one of his tweets. I was quite happy with that and didn’t think of it as a waste of time on Twitter. Would you?
By the way, talking about Maki, he has one of the best blogs on the Net and I really love to read his posts. Like :
Managing Information Flow about how to prioritize information highly effectively, including tweets from Twitter.
Understanding the Value of ‘Friends’ in Social Media Websites explains what purposes friends networks serve.
And there are a lot more of highly valuable posts at DoshDosh!
And on other blogs, like Copyblogger.com, EntrepreneursJourney.com and CourtneyTuttle.com, just to name a few.
What’s wrong with following these people on social media sites like Twitter? You get to know them a lot better, which makes it easier to communicate with them in a meaningful way.
And here we have arrived at the most useful benefit of using Twitter (yes, for as long as it lasts):
all people in Twitter are VERY responsive!
And let me immediately emphasize that this does not only apply to A-list bloggers, ‘guru’s or experts. It also applies to others.
Only yesterday evening, Vlad (who I already knew) of Sageblogger.com and Kerry Morrison (who I didn’t know at all) of Kmo.ca helped me out finding a teleseminar that I HAD to attend, but didn’t have the information about.
That’s just an example of many, but what makes this one so interesting is that I wasn’t on Twitter at all. Only when I discovered I didn’t receive the right information, I logged in and got what I needed within 5 minutes!
That’s making use of Twitter effectively.
No, Twitter is not stupid for me. Maybe you want to try again Mark? Oh, and you don’t use Twitter to generate traffic. You use it mainly to extend your personal network, the rest will follow.
Let’s hear what you have to say about Twitter.
Post your comments below.
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Other Bookmarks that you can use now!
Twitter. I love Twitter.
I can’t imagine another medium that has taught me so much.
I’ve followed links to mines of information, new techniques, blog posts, tools, services and startups, many of which I would never have been aware of.
I’ve been given beta invites, entered competitions, met interesting people, made new friends and followed seminars – as they happen.
All through Tweets.
No, Twitter is NOT stupid!
Great post Case. I need to start using my digital timer more though… to limit my time on Twitter.
I use the Direct Messages feature a lot more than many probably do though.
Willie
Case,
I did not “get” Twitter at first. And while at times it can suck you in and help you to waste your time. There were plenty of occasions as the ones you have described that helped me find some very important information.
I appreciate the spotlight
You get what you deserve Vlad.
Congrats with receiving your green card!
Thanks for helping to make sense of Twitter for me. Very useful information.
Regards
Robert
I love twitter. Made friends, learned something, found new blogs, promoted myself and others. It’s been great. Stupid? NOT.
@DivinePurposeMV
Thanks and stumbled too!
I actually twitter, but I don’t get there very often.
I could spend too much time reading tweets-looking for something with beef in it. It’s kind of addicting, so I don’t go very often – same is true for Facebook (and it’s really slow on my machine.)
@Bob Younce,
I think there is not a single comment and out of all who have commented I can see only one commentator acknowledged that he is not familiar with the service. Can you explain how did you arrive to such conclusion?
I also can’t see how any one is “running something down”. With all do respect Bob, my biggest complain about comments like yours that you wrote them without actually reading neither post itself and the comments that followed. All you did is to read the Headline.
Twitter seems like it’s just ripping the status feature from Facebook and making that the whole focus of the site. I’ve seen some cool Twitter extensions (I guess that’s what you’d call them) that let you do things like help you quit smoking by keeping track of your last cigarette, diet ones by counting junk food, and stuff like that.
It really is just a little novelty site that is essentially a light version of Myspace and Facebook.
I love twitter and I don’t think its stupid either. Like you if i am swamped – I don’t use it too often. But I do try to tweet a few things and reply to a few others.
@kachinko – Really?????
Well, as long as you fake having 28,000 RSS subscribers on kachinkoonline.com, you’re TOAST buddy.
kachinkoonline.com/wp-content/themes/lightbreaker/images/kkl.gif
You don’t even have a feedburner account!
Not stupid at all. A fantastic networking site. It’s where I keep in touch with a number of marketers. Even one of my products was born from a Twitter discussion.
Kevin
@space codes Try Twitter.com. All you need is Internet access, which you seem to have already.
If you really would have read the article, you would have discovered about twhirl and quotably.
I think that different people value different things and all of us have different mindset. For me, i love Twitter! Why not? It helps me to broaden my social circle.
twitter is good! it has helpped me widen my social circle and exposed me to many knew blogs!
Twitter is just a new toy, or if you want new web2.0 toy. I think everyone should use it for whatever one likes: expanding network, making friends, writing notes to himself…
Twitter is web (mobile?) service, so we can’t talk about if it’s stupid or not. Only users can use it in smart or not so smart way.
Flitter