How I Plan to Use Twitter in 2009
Twitter is one of those social media tools that is hard to ignore, but a lot of people are not sure how to use it. Personally, I use Twitter as a resource, a pulse of the industries I follow, and for business. I
try not to use Twitter to update what my kid did today or other mindless
comments. That being said, of course the occasional tweet like that and local news will filter into the stream.
I’ve tried a few strategies on how to use Twitter in 2008 from only following my friends and people I’ve met, to being very selective, to following a ton of people in industries and following almost everyone who follows me (which sometimes I really wonder how they find me). I tried the Guy Kawasaki (@guykawasaki) approach of getting the fire hose and then paying attention to replies and direct messages. I’ve tried to use it as a sounding board with little success. But that may be attributed to how little I tweet in the first
place. I’ve seen Twitter used very successfully as a networking tool from the sorts of Kevin O’Keefe (@kevinokeefe) and Peter Flashner (@flashlight). However, as we enter 2009 I will use a new strategy. This is important to note because it will help you determine if you want to follow me or not as well as if I will follow you in reciprocation.
If you follow me @FredFaulknerIV you will find useful information. Follow me if you like what I tweet/retweet. Follow me if you are into social media, marketing, business, and associations. Don’t follow me solely for where I work. I will occasionally tweet about work I do for my employer. This will be for good reasons, but not a regular occurrence.
I will also use this Twitter account to also network with others (virtually at first, and hopefully in person at some point in the future). I believe the power of tweets can start conversations, first publicly, then privately over direct messages, and then to email.
The concept of Twitter isn’t going away. MovableType is releasing Motion as part of their platform in early 2009, which can make that platform a major player in the social platform market. Businesses are jumping on Twitter and using successfully. See what Shell Israel is doing with Twitterville. But with all things social media, 2009 will be all about moderation.
So look out for the concept of a Tweet, or a short 140 character message. It is changing the way we think about communicating, what we communicate, and can we be effective in what we say.
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