A New Perspective on Twitter
As an aspiring entrepreneur, one of the things you hear over and over again is that you are going to make mistakes, and many of them. The most important difference between a successful entrepreneur and those destined for failure is that you must learn from your mistakes and apply those lessons in the future.
So here goes....I was wrong. There. I said it.
My original conceptions of the micro-blogging phenomenon known as Twitter were not fully formed and I am embarrassed that I was for a brief moment, a Twitter hater. My post from Wednesday March 25, 2009 titled, "The Truth Sometimes Hurts..." is a rather hilarious and derisive commentary on the value of Twitter, tweeting and twitterers. Mostly, I reposted the Supernews! video because it made me laugh....a lot. I would be interested to find out whether the guys over at Supernews are Twittering, or continue to think of it as a ridiculous waste of time for self-involved twits. Maybe I will see if I can find the Supernews! account and follow it.... Just kidding.
Shortly after that post I decided to find out for myself what all the Tweeting was about and over the last month and a half, I have become a believer, sort of. I still think that approximately 95% of all Twittering is pointless, self-indulgent dross (see my Twitter page), but that other 5% is what we should be excited about.
I realized the error of my ways because, as someone who is very interested in marketing (digital, mobile or otherwise) I understand the importance of making headlines. That is what marketers do and Twitter has ushered in a new era of communication that forces people to take stock of the fact that we are all constrained by time. In a world with so much information, two eyeballs and limited amount of time are severely limited resources. Accordingly, if something is of value to someone else, you best be able to communicate that value whether it be pertaining to thoughts, ideas, links and jokes in 140 words or less.
For the purpose of making headlines travel further and faster than ever before, Twitter is an amazing tool for businesses. I believe being a business on Twitter has much more value than indivduals tweeting about their bad hair days. Of course, being a business, or representing your company on Twitter does come with its own pitfalls. This blog post, by Bill Sweetman on the OneDegree.ca blog details some rules to live by when executives are considering a Twitter presence. Another example, of what can happen if you don't treat twitter as the open public forum is this much re-tweeted public spat between National Post reporter David George-Cosh unleashes a Twitter tirade on marketing consultant April Dunford. This is Twitter at its most evil and most inane.
But for most, Twitter is a practical and simple tool to share headlines with your supporters, whether they are customers, investors, advisory panel, suppliers, vendors or groupies. Twitter is a valuable way to share the small victories of running a business (especially a growing one) day-to-day. A new product launch, a new deal being signed, a conference you are attending or a link to a video of a presentation you gave. These are all valid and important Twitter topics that will help you stay relevant in the minds of your supporters. Twitter can also be an important tool to reasearch sales leads. If you are trying to build a relationship with someone, you would be suprised how much info you can glean from a Twitter account about their business activities. "Oh yeah, I saw that you attended the SXSW Festival this year, what did you think, was it a worthwhile event to attend?"
In the end it's all about time and timing. No one said creating something unique, profound or interesting in such a short span is easy, but it does force us to be relevant. Twitter user, Janis Krums
hit the social media utility jackpot on January 16th, when the ferry that he was riding on was the first on the scene to rescue passengers from US Airways flight that crash landed (safely) in the Hudson River. Krums was the first person to cover the event and the images he uploaded to Tweetpic were distributed around the world as the story broke.
I am fully aware that even as I write this post that is mainly about relevancy, the irony of using 3 month old posts and news stories is rich. But hey, I am trying. More to come as I further explore how social networking and social media are influencing the way we communicate with each other. In the meantime, if you want to discuss more, you can follow me on Twitter! Shameless....:)
So here goes....I was wrong. There. I said it.
My original conceptions of the micro-blogging phenomenon known as Twitter were not fully formed and I am embarrassed that I was for a brief moment, a Twitter hater. My post from Wednesday March 25, 2009 titled, "The Truth Sometimes Hurts..." is a rather hilarious and derisive commentary on the value of Twitter, tweeting and twitterers. Mostly, I reposted the Supernews! video because it made me laugh....a lot. I would be interested to find out whether the guys over at Supernews are Twittering, or continue to think of it as a ridiculous waste of time for self-involved twits. Maybe I will see if I can find the Supernews! account and follow it.... Just kidding.
Shortly after that post I decided to find out for myself what all the Tweeting was about and over the last month and a half, I have become a believer, sort of. I still think that approximately 95% of all Twittering is pointless, self-indulgent dross (see my Twitter page), but that other 5% is what we should be excited about.
I realized the error of my ways because, as someone who is very interested in marketing (digital, mobile or otherwise) I understand the importance of making headlines. That is what marketers do and Twitter has ushered in a new era of communication that forces people to take stock of the fact that we are all constrained by time. In a world with so much information, two eyeballs and limited amount of time are severely limited resources. Accordingly, if something is of value to someone else, you best be able to communicate that value whether it be pertaining to thoughts, ideas, links and jokes in 140 words or less.
For the purpose of making headlines travel further and faster than ever before, Twitter is an amazing tool for businesses. I believe being a business on Twitter has much more value than indivduals tweeting about their bad hair days. Of course, being a business, or representing your company on Twitter does come with its own pitfalls. This blog post, by Bill Sweetman on the OneDegree.ca blog details some rules to live by when executives are considering a Twitter presence. Another example, of what can happen if you don't treat twitter as the open public forum is this much re-tweeted public spat between National Post reporter David George-Cosh unleashes a Twitter tirade on marketing consultant April Dunford. This is Twitter at its most evil and most inane.
But for most, Twitter is a practical and simple tool to share headlines with your supporters, whether they are customers, investors, advisory panel, suppliers, vendors or groupies. Twitter is a valuable way to share the small victories of running a business (especially a growing one) day-to-day. A new product launch, a new deal being signed, a conference you are attending or a link to a video of a presentation you gave. These are all valid and important Twitter topics that will help you stay relevant in the minds of your supporters. Twitter can also be an important tool to reasearch sales leads. If you are trying to build a relationship with someone, you would be suprised how much info you can glean from a Twitter account about their business activities. "Oh yeah, I saw that you attended the SXSW Festival this year, what did you think, was it a worthwhile event to attend?"
In the end it's all about time and timing. No one said creating something unique, profound or interesting in such a short span is easy, but it does force us to be relevant. Twitter user, Janis Krums
hit the social media utility jackpot on January 16th, when the ferry that he was riding on was the first on the scene to rescue passengers from US Airways flight that crash landed (safely) in the Hudson River. Krums was the first person to cover the event and the images he uploaded to Tweetpic were distributed around the world as the story broke.
I am fully aware that even as I write this post that is mainly about relevancy, the irony of using 3 month old posts and news stories is rich. But hey, I am trying. More to come as I further explore how social networking and social media are influencing the way we communicate with each other. In the meantime, if you want to discuss more, you can follow me on Twitter! Shameless....:)
posted by David Offierski at
3:00 PM
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