Career News 24/7: The Cynical Girl: Social Media Saturday: Twitter

Sunday, June 19, 2011

The Cynical Girl: Social Media Saturday: Twitter

Posted: 18 Jun 2011 03:45 AM PDT

I still speak to people who have never been on Twitter. I know it seems weird. They read my blog. They’re connected to me on LinkedIn. And some of them will say things like, “I don’t want to read about what you had for breakfast.”

Okay. I get it. You’re busy. We are all busy. But I don’t like people who aren’t intellectually curious. It bugs me when people complain about social media — and Twitter in particular — without really trying out and/or experimenting with the tool.

For those of you who are intellectually curious out there, you can judge. It’s okay. But for the most part, you’re not judging. I hear frustration with the limitations of the social networking site. You’ve explored it. You’ve tweeted. And now you wonder – how the hell am I supposed to manage this nonsense?

Believe me, I understand. And I don’t think you have to ‘manage’ it. Jump in. Jump out. Watch. Listen. And let it go. Who cares? And for the more curious among you, know this: nearly 75% of twitter users still access the service via their internet browser (either on a laptop or mobile device). That’s right. Most people still go to www.twitter.com or m.twitter.com and chat with people the old school way. No fancy tools.

Want some fancy tools? Well, I use Hootsuite. That’s it. I can use Hootsuite through my browser and on my iPhone. It’s so easy to keep up with conversations. Some people use Tweetdeck and that’s a good service, too.

I don’t buy followers and I don’t schedule many tweets in advance (because that’s dumb). I link my blog to my twitter account via Twitterfeed.

There are a million other tools out there to make Twitter more robust. The easy answer is to tell you to check out @oneforty. You can look at this fancy chart by Brian Solis to help you get a grip on the twitter tools.

There are bazillions.

Who cares how you use Twitter. In five years, we’ll be using something else. (In my dreams, it’s monkey-robots.)

I advise everyone to be intellectually curious. Be bold. And don’t criticize people for tweeting about what they had for breakfast. Social media is a platform for conversation, and users are tweeting about breakfast because that’s what they would be talking about it in real life.

I had eggs. They were lovely and cooked perfectly. They always are because someone else cooks them. (99 characters. Booyah. It’s like the new haiku.)