Thursday, May 08, 2008

What's so great about Twitter?

Well, to be totally honest, I really don't know?

I've read a couple of ebooks about it. I've read several articles about it. I've spent hours reading blog posts about it. And I've gone to quite a few tweeter pages to see what people are tweeting about.

Now in case you're not familiar with Twitter it's a micro-blogging service. And for those who don't know what micro-blogging here's how it's defined on http://en.wikipedia.org

"Micro-blogging is a form of blogging that allows users to write brief text updates (usually less than 200 characters) and publish them, either to be viewed by anyone or by a restricted group which can be chosen by the user. These messages can be submitted by a variety of means, including text messaging, instant messaging, email, MP3 or the web."

Tweeter is the most popular of the micro-blogging sites and hosts pages for people like Mike Filsaime, Doug Champigny, BobTheTeacher, Brad Fallon and Joel Comm.

And after looking at the latest tweets from these guys I now know:

  • Doug's e-mail list-build product is selling well and he doesn't know why article marketer is running a week behind.

  • Mike was sitting in a seminar on May 3.

  • Bob was going to exercise and who he hopes will win in the presidential primary.

  • Brad's posted a couple of new entries on his blog.

  • Joel's got a new blog post and he is in New Jersey.

Did I need to know any of this stuff? NO! Did I want to know? Again, NO!

So does Tweeter have a place? Sure it does. If you've got a group who needs to be in contact like a work-group, affiliates or your family and friends then you may have a use for these short notes.

But what about online marketers? Well, if they're working together on a project then yes, it could be useful. But if you're not part of the group then do you really care to get a bunch of "instant messages" about something that doesn't concern you?

Now Twitter pages do seem to rank well in Google so some online marketers say that if it's done right it's a good way to get a little traffic through the search engines. However others think most won't do it correctly and it's just another way to waste your valuable time.

So after spending several hours searching for information about micro-blogging and in particular, how to use sites like Tweeter effectively I still don't know if it's a useful social networking tool for most online marketers.

What do you think? Do you want to try micro-blogging because you have time to read and reply to comments? Or do you think it's just another way to waste time?

To Your Success,
Susan

P.S. if you'd like to read some information on how to use Tweeter as a social networking tool here's the best place I've found for getting some information:
http://www.problogger.net/archives/2008/03/25/how-i-use-twitter-to-promote-my-blog/
At the end of that article there are links to 4 other articles about Twitter.


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