As the twitter phenomenon has become mainstream I have found myself being asked on a regular basis to explain its value to business people who have not yet engaged. In three postings I hope to explain what it is, why I use and how I use it.
The basics of twitter
Twitter enables me to stay in touch with a group of people who, for the most part, share common interests with me. Effectively I participate in a community where people – including me – contribute information. The contributed information may or may not be of interest to me. However I have a number of options open to me to focus the information which is being brought to my attention.
I choose whom I follow in twitter. All of the information contributed by those whom I follow is brought to my attention. I can of course choose to ignore any or all of this information. However I have chosen to follow these individuals because I expect some or all of the information contributed by them to be of interest to me. Over a period of time I will cease to follow individuals whose contributions are generally of no interest to me.
I contribute to twitter. My expectation is that my contributions will be of value to some of my current or future followers. My contributions may range from: drawing attention to one of my own blog postings, drawing attention to someone else’s contribution (twitter, blog, web site, youtuve video, etc), responding to a request for information or asking a question – seeking support/ advice from one of my followers. In general my following will grow in proportion to the quality and frequency of my contributions.
I also use an application, tweetdeck, to assist me in reviewing tweats which my be of interest to me. Using tweetdeck I have organised the people I follow into groups e.g. those who contribute in relation to ‘links golf in Ireland’, those who contribute in relation to ‘semantic web’. This way I can focus my review on one specific subject matter of interest. I also use tweetdeck to run a number of continuous searches e.g. all tweets re ‘sharepoint for knowledge management’. This searches across all tweets. It may also cause me to add specific individuals to my follow list – because of the quality/ relevance of their contribution.
Barry,
Nice kick-off to your series of articles on twitter. In relation to your references to the use of search and groups on twitterdeck, here’s a link to a youtube video on those functions – http://short.ie/uikzkr
.
Also interesting blog from Brendan Hughes on ‘top 10′ twitter apps/services at
.
http://brendanhughes.ie/2009/06/21/top-10-twitter-tools-for-business/
Richie
[...] In the first article I referenced twitter as a community – perhaps more accurately as providing a platform to support an infinite number of communities. However these are communities without regulation – there is no sign up fee and there are no rules. There is no membership per se – you vuluntarily contribute and vultarily receive (by following). People are using the platform to share and exchange information – in a form on online collaboration. [...]
[...] Part 1 [...]