Peace of Mind Organizing

Why I love Twitter

16 November 2009

November 12 was the one-year anniversary of my signing up for Twitter. I have to admit that it took a little persuading on the part of my friend Shannon Wilkinson to get me to sign up. I didn’t get the concept and I thought it would be a mindless time suck. I had the rationale that I’ve heard time and time again from people who don’t understand Twitter that I didn’t care to read about the minutiae of other people’s lives, nor was I interested in writing about my own.

Shannon patiently explained that that’s not what Twitter’s about. Twitter is about sharing resources and getting to know others.

As usual, Shannon was right. Twitter has a been a great resource for me and is easily my favorite social-networking site. So today I’d like to share a dozen of the reasons (in no particular order) that I love Twitter.

• It’s educational. I follow smart people who post links to really great blogs posts and websites. I learn so much.

• It’s changed the way I read blogs. I no longer try to read a certain number of blogs on a very regular basis. There are just too many good blogs out there and not enough time. Instead, when I’m on Twitter I check out the individual blog posts that people I respect recommend. I’m exposed to many sites I would not otherwise know about.

• It’s a great way to get great customer service. Many companies have employees whose jobs are to monitor Twitter. Thanks to a (complimentary) tweet I made about Charter earlier this year, my wish for a specific DVR came true within days. (Thank you, Eric, aka @Umatter2Charter).

• I save money. I hear about discounts and coupons on Twitter. Sometimes they’re twitter-only specials. That rocks.

• I can keep abreast of pop culture. I love pop culture. Entertainment Weekly is my bible and I read the print version religiously. But there’s so much more on EW.com that isn’t in the magazine. I would rarely remember to check out that website. Now I follow my favorite EW columnists (like Michael Slezak) and click on the links he suggests.

• It’s a constructive way to use down time. In the past, when I needed a little break, I’d play a solitaire game or maybe surf around the web aimlessly. Now I check out my twitter feed and I’m either entertained or I learn something. So for me, it’s not a time suck.

• Twitter brings hits to my blog. When I write a blog post I think is particularly good, I’ll post a link to it on Twitter. And some of my followers will click on it. I’m sure I get more clicks this way than I would without Twitter. If it’s a great blog post, one (or more) of my followers will tweet about it and their followers will become exposed to my work. Everyone wins.

• I get to see the private, witty side of some of my colleagues. I have organizing colleagues whom I see only at conferences when they’re in full professional mode. But on Twitter, they let their hair down sometimes. I get to know details of their private lives that really help humanize them. I love that.

• There aren’t quizzes or games or pokes. I admit it: I’m not a huge fan of Facebook. I can’t stand seeing all the quiz results and I hate being poked. Twitter comes in 140-word bites. Easy peasy.

• It’s a great writing exercise. I love the challenge of getting my point across in 140 characters or fewer. Add a link and you have even less to work with, particularly if you want to leave room in the message so people can repost (or “retweet” or “RT” it). It can be fun whittling the character count down without diluting the message.

• There’s no pressure to read everything. I follow 605 people. There’s no way I could read everything they tweet. So I just dip in and dip out, reading what’s in front of me at that moment, almost like a stream of consciousness thing. I’ll do a search for people I’m particularly interested in, so I don’t miss their tweets (I use Tweetie and that’s easy). It’s the opposite of overwhelming. I just read what’s in front of me.

• You don’t have to ask (or grant) permission. You can follow anyone on Twitter. And anyone can follow you (though you can block people from reading your tweets). So you follow someone you admire without having to ask them if it’s okay and worrying about their rejecting—or ignoring—you.

If you’ve been tempted to try out Twitter, or if you tried in the past but gave up, maybe you should try again. It’s all about who you follow. If you want to follow some smart people, go to my page on Twitter and see who I’m following and select some to follow yourself. You’ll find organizers, internet marketing gurus, celebrities, lots of fun people.

Tagged with: shannon wilkinson, twitter

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