Twitter

So Twitter, tweeting, retweeting, following and being followed. Don’t worry, not in a stalker sense.

What’s it all about and how does it work? Well for the full comprehensive laid out detailed instruction go to http://twitter.com/help/start.

Or alternatively you could let me give you a break down in the next few paragraphs.

Still reading? Ok then let’s begin.
Twitter, http://twitter.com is a free social networking and micro-blogging (don’t worry we will cover blogging in another, erm, blog later) service that enables its users to send and read messages known as Tweets. Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 characters displayed on the users profile page and delivered to the user’s subscribers who are known as followers. Senders can restrict delivery to those in their circle of friends or, by default, allow open access. Users can send and receive tweets via the Twitter website, and can use mobile phone texting to do roaming tweets. Users can also send messages direct to their followers.

So why use twitter? Well one of the reasons that I like Twitter is that you don’t have to write essays or masterpieces. You can just say what you feel or want. This makes it very simple to use. It’s like thinking out loud and telling the people who want to listen, these are your followers, what’s on your mind. For example: If you come up with a good concept that will help your business or you have just got that deal that you have been working so hard on, then you want to tell people about it. However your social and work bubble only extends so far. So why not just get online and tell the world? Already you are advertising your products and yourself. I personally have two twitter accounts, one for me where I can tweet about my interests and one which is related to my business where I tweet about my working interests. I have also linked the work twitter account to my business web site.

Another reason that I like twitter is that I can search for people with similar personal interests and those within my area of expertise. Even though you have to carry out the search by searching for people, if you use your business in the name or the mini bio that you can write in you profile then if someone searches for IT Support for example you would find me listed somewhere. Twitter haven’t perfected the search facility yet but are working on it. They have also got together with Google and if you type your Twitter user name into Google it will return your Twitter account on the results.

So to summarise. Twitter is a really neat micro blogging tool that requires very little input but can enhance your profile on the internet and allows you to keep up to date with... well... stuff.

Happy tweeting.