Why use Twitter? What is the point of Twitter? Twitter Usage? Answers here!
Other than claiming to know all the words to Mama Mia in a macho, football loving office environment – there isn’t much more embarrassing than admitting to loving the massive new craze – Twitter. I continue to smash the insults for six as I soldier on with my Twitter quest. I want the world to know what I am doing! I want the world to be aware of the ups and downs of my life! Is this the sole reason people use Twitter? Is this the point of twitter? How can we define Twitter usage? All is below my friend.
Twitter Usage
If you haven’t a Twitter you’re so 2007! Everyone has one nowadays including me – Andy Francos (hello!). So what can you do? You can type in a maximum message of 140 characters explaining what you’re up to. In terms of functionality – that’s about it! However, there is plenty more things Twitter can offer you, which we will touch on in a bit. But for now here is my message for you guys – which is known as a Tweet:
So all of my many followers (sure) will be able to read what I am up to and tweet back with comments of their own. Or Twitterers scouring the ‘Public Timeline’ – might even consider following you:
Everyone that is anyone has a Twitter account – check out the BBC, SkySports and FourFourTwo – who don’t even have to update their feeds regularly! An RSS feed can be setup so that news items appear as a Tweet – meaning that followers can keep up to date with the latest news and views of that organisation – brilliant!
Celebrity Twitters
Other than climbing a tree across the road with a pair of binoculars and a box of doughnuts – you don’t get to find out what your favourite celebrities are upto on a daily basis. You could have found out what Barack Obama, Larry David,Stephen Fry, Britney Spears and Lance Armstrong are up to! – Like I said, anybody that is anybody is on the sensation that is Twitter!
Help Engine
This is where it gets very interesting as Twitter is now defining a new way in which we search for information. Of course Google is the king of information, hence the enormous market share the big G has in the UK – but we are now seeing the creation of help engines – namely the big T.
Using this article as an example – I made a Tweet about famous people on Twitter:
Rather than going to a search engine and looking for the information, I asked my beloved followers if they new the answer to my question. Low and behold – I received a tweet back from HighRankings adviser and fellow SEO – Jill Whalen:
So in less than three minutes I’d received a great response to my query! Brilliant! You can also even search for Twitterers who include your keyword within their Tweets:
So as you can see, Twitter usage is endless and there are so many things you do to appeal to your audience. Whether it be getting news items across, updating clients on specific information or generally using it for social networking with your friends – Twitter is here and it looks like staying for a while.
Tags: Internet, Social Media Optimisation, twitter
March 18th, 2009 at 10:28 am
I like the article. I have a Twitter account but did not know what to do with it for a long time. To be honest, I think it van be a little tedious seeing pointless feeds from people telling me that they have just had a above average cup of tea (I guess I could stop following them??). Using the search facility seems a great way to see “whats happening on the street” and I have come across some good articles that I would not have found in my Reader. Do you think it’s just a craze that will setttle doen though?
March 18th, 2009 at 3:10 pm
Twitter is kind of additive – I find myself constantly logging in and posting tweets – although I’m not really sure what the point of it all is!
March 18th, 2009 at 6:25 pm
But where did Jill Whalen get that info from? Did she search Google? (google is like Kevin Bacon, you’re never more than 7 steps away from it).
March 24th, 2009 at 1:51 am
@Sam I had the info because I had just heard about that new directory earlier at another site I frequent (Sphinn). I didn’t search anything. Just happened to have heard of the new Twitter directory, new they had a celebrity section and happened to see Andy’s tweet asking if anyone knew any celebrities that were on Twitter.
That, my friend, is the beauty of Twitter!
March 24th, 2009 at 9:43 am
@Jill – I stand corrected – Is Twitter the new search engine and Twittering the new robots?
I will undertake an experiment to use Twitter in place of Google this week. Andy will be running it and maybe at some point you may want to get involved. – We will submit the results here.
Thanks for your time and help Jill.
Sam
March 24th, 2009 at 10:44 am
Twitter is a tool of popularity because of its simplicity and because of the way it joined in the search market, simplicity is the key, functionality has been boosted, Twitter is like many tools that will live its days in the limelight before receding.
March 24th, 2009 at 10:48 am
Following celebrities can be addictive, and some of them even tweet you back, but there are a lot of fakes on there. Check out http://valebrity.com/ for a list of celebrities that have been validated, or follow them on twitter @valebrity.
March 25th, 2009 at 10:51 am
3 minutes to find out what Google can tell you in 20 seconds? Hmm. Here’s Jeremy Paxman’s page:
http://twitter.com/jpaxman
March 25th, 2009 at 12:29 pm
Twit – I have now been embedded into the laziness of society that I can’t waste 20 seconds of my precious time looking through results – So I use 10 seconds to type my questions into Twitter.
I totally agree, of course you can find things out via search engines – if you couldn’t we’d be out of a job – my point being is that people are turning to Twitter (whether we like it or not) to ask their followers questions – regardless of the fact that you can find the information yourself – or have we just become that lazy?
May 1st, 2009 at 5:55 pm
After doing an extensive test on twitter, well i asked my followers several questions, relating directly to my twitter page.
The page is about Cars. I have over 1,000 ‘followers’. And i asked questions that any self-respecting Car Lover would know the answer to. How many answers did i get? Zero.
Should i rest my case, as well as my Twittering?