I finally signed up to Twitter last week, and have found it to be a very interesting exercise. I’ll admit that I didn’t really see the point of it initially. It had been described to me as being like the status updates on facebook, and although I enjoy reading my friend’s facebook updates, I didn’t see the point of reading updates from 100s of people around the world, even if they do happen to be famous.
What no one explained to me was what a good marketing tool it is. Since signing up I have found lots of great articles on the Internet, which I would otherwise have missed. This is because the great people I’m following on Twitter will send a message out whenever they find a post worth reading. I haven’t done this yet myself, as I’m a bit unsure of the etiquette. Is it OK to just tweet about any site I happen to find interesting? Or should I get their permission first?
I know that Twitter automatically converts urls which are over 30 characters to Tiny ones. Should I convert all the web-links I tweet into tiny ones, or only if they are too long?
I’ve heard about Twitter spam, but haven’t come across any yet. Has anyone had a spam problem there yet?
I have also learnt some new words. Did you know that a twoosh is a 140 character tweet? Or that a tweep is someone who follows you on twitter? I have found this Twitter Dictionary really useful, as there are so many new words to discover.
I’ve enjoyed my first week, but am pleased that I am showing no signs of addiction to it. I just check it once or twice a day, and find it to be a great blogging tool, rather than the enjoyable waste of time I expected it to be.
My Twitter user name is farmlanebooks. If you’re a twitter user then you are welcome to follow me – I’ll try to add more useful tweets in the future. If you’re not yet signed up, then I recommend you give it a try, as it is not at all how I expected it to be.
Remember the Comment of the Week Competition! I’m looking forward to reading your comments!