Thursday, December 4, 2008

A Little Birdie Told Me: Tweet Tweet

Honestly, I'm just not a huge fan of Twitter. Maybe I just don't understand it's full potential; I don't know. To me, it just seem like it is just full of random "this is what i am doing" status updates.

An article by Sarah Milstein shows the Twitter page of a man named Jack. Jack is the founder of Twitter, so you would assume he has some pretty good things to Twitter about, right? Well, you know what happens when we assume! Jack twitters that he is "putting on a mic" and that he has "$3.50 in his pocket." Sorry Jack, I really just don't care!

I believe Milstein shares my sentiments to some degree, as she mentions that if you are using Twitter for professional reasons, you should ignore the Twitter promt of "What are you doing" because frankly, most people don't care. Instead, she states that you should note cool work-related things you've discovered and talk more about what has your attention.

I do think Twitter could be useful, as long as you have something to say. It would be great if you had a new product or an event going on that was always changing. Or if you were the PR rep for a celebrity or presidential candidate. People are always curious about what they are doing, so I think people like that would be easy to tweet about. And let's face it; in today's world where so many companies are chopping out their marketing and pr budgets without hesitation, using free services such as Twitter are a great remedy to help you get publicity.

I guess my biggest concern with Twitter in thinking about my own job is, what in the world would I Twitter about all day? Chris Brogan offers 50 ideas on using Twitter for business, so I looked to him for advice on what to Twitter about at work. He mentioned promoting your employees' outside-of-work stories. I could do that. He also mentions sharing the human side of your company. I could do that too. Right off the bat, these are two things that I could Twitter about...I just don't think it is enough to sustain an entire Twitter account and draw in readers. I mean sure Twitter is great (considering that it does have a hige following) I just think there is something that I'm not getting.... :(

4 comments:

Jeff Norris said...

I agree when you say "Twitter could be useful, as long as you have something to say" because no one really cares if I'm watching ESPN or CNN on TV. The information you post on Twitter should be interesting and perhaps useful to a point for people following you.

Orlando said...

I agree with Jeff, and I also think that it's just not enough -- maybe used as a supplement to other PR tactics. Still, companies have real time instant messaging for talking to one another, so they really don't need this.

I'm not writing it off just yet -- someone may discover the 'key' to a good twitter, or the whole website could be remodeled to fit into more practical usage.

Akwesi Antwi said...

I am still kind of trying to figure out what other uses twitter is good for. Besides, it fills my email account very often.

Natalie said...

Keshia,

I agree with your post- as far as not getting Twitter! It is important to learn how to use it, as well as learn how to use it well. I think that ignoring the prompt is helpful- especially if you are a business using twitter!

You always have great posts!