Twitter - ific - Getting Started
I tried like hell not to be apart of twitter, I really did.
There, I said it and I feel great.
When I moved to Seoul in the summer of 2007 Facebook was of course, around. It was mildly popular, and almost exclusively a place for college kids. The CEO Mark Zuckerberg was something like only 24 at the time. MySpace had just gone through its heyday and was on their downward slope. I had heard rumblings in the tech world of a thing called Twitter but with such a stupid name I quickly dismissed it.
I'm a self proclaimed tech nerd. I am an Apple fangirl to the teeth. Don't like shoes, or purses, or talking endlessly about clothing or makeup, but I DO visit sites like Gizmodo, Engadget, and Wired Magazine about 100 times a week. So when Twitter started becoming a household name I thought, well ok, I'll jump on this bandwagon too.
But what I found in 2008 was that it was useless. I didn't care about people's thoughts or ramblings. It didn't give me information about a person as a whole like Facebook did, there weren't any photos, it was difficult to use, and there's nothing worse than being limited to 140 characters to send a message. No one in Asia even knew what it was (and still doesn't). So I gave it up and thought it'd be a quick fad and go the way of MySpace.
Then 2009 happened. The iPhone became KING of the mobile phones over the past two years. Apps exploded everywhere for social media. Companies started advertising on it! Commercials now direct consumers to facebook pages and twitter accounts. And for such a tech nerd, this has all added into my reverse culture shock in the past month. I cannot believe how many people are jumping on board with this. It isn't a bandwagon anymore, it's a traveling circus.
Now here we are, in 2010 just after the start of the new year and if anything could be considered an explosion, I'd say right now is the time. I'm now following over 100 people (up from my steady 20-25 for the past 2 years) and have unprotected my tweets, focusing on putting forth quality content. I joined a Twitter Strategies group in LinkedIn. I am following dozens of career professionals and am finding myself obsessed with the quality of articles that everyone "tweets." It has taken me about a week to figure it out... with with all the @ symbols and # tags. The grammar nazi/former English teacher in me CRINGES every time I see "text" speak of "I gt 2 go cul8r" type things, but it's something you hopefully get past. Or well, just complain about it like I do. In my opinion it's ruining English, and our teenagers are not the sharpest spoons in the drawer - but that's another opinion for another day.
The trick is sit down with it for a day or on the website. Then you can deal with all the fun the phone brings later on (still tackling that one myself). Follow some of your favorite websites, or companies, or search a generic topic and watch it develop. What I realized today is that Twitter is not something where you follow each person's individual page - you stop in to see what's going on. The benefit too is by following the right person in the right cities can also get you some great deals, OR into some free events. We all like Free right?
As people get better at this Twitter becomes more useful. It's a great place for resources and networking, and it's a great start before you move onto LinkedIn and then onto Facebook where you can really become friends with people. Personally, it has reinvented the job search and networking is a lot easier.
So don't be afraid... don't judge it like I did... now is the perfect time to give it a try. Take it from a previous Twitter hater who still has her issues (grrr Grammar!) but you might enjoy it.
There, I said it and I feel great.
When I moved to Seoul in the summer of 2007 Facebook was of course, around. It was mildly popular, and almost exclusively a place for college kids. The CEO Mark Zuckerberg was something like only 24 at the time. MySpace had just gone through its heyday and was on their downward slope. I had heard rumblings in the tech world of a thing called Twitter but with such a stupid name I quickly dismissed it.
I'm a self proclaimed tech nerd. I am an Apple fangirl to the teeth. Don't like shoes, or purses, or talking endlessly about clothing or makeup, but I DO visit sites like Gizmodo, Engadget, and Wired Magazine about 100 times a week. So when Twitter started becoming a household name I thought, well ok, I'll jump on this bandwagon too.
But what I found in 2008 was that it was useless. I didn't care about people's thoughts or ramblings. It didn't give me information about a person as a whole like Facebook did, there weren't any photos, it was difficult to use, and there's nothing worse than being limited to 140 characters to send a message. No one in Asia even knew what it was (and still doesn't). So I gave it up and thought it'd be a quick fad and go the way of MySpace.
Then 2009 happened. The iPhone became KING of the mobile phones over the past two years. Apps exploded everywhere for social media. Companies started advertising on it! Commercials now direct consumers to facebook pages and twitter accounts. And for such a tech nerd, this has all added into my reverse culture shock in the past month. I cannot believe how many people are jumping on board with this. It isn't a bandwagon anymore, it's a traveling circus.
Now here we are, in 2010 just after the start of the new year and if anything could be considered an explosion, I'd say right now is the time. I'm now following over 100 people (up from my steady 20-25 for the past 2 years) and have unprotected my tweets, focusing on putting forth quality content. I joined a Twitter Strategies group in LinkedIn. I am following dozens of career professionals and am finding myself obsessed with the quality of articles that everyone "tweets." It has taken me about a week to figure it out... with with all the @ symbols and # tags. The grammar nazi/former English teacher in me CRINGES every time I see "text" speak of "I gt 2 go cul8r" type things, but it's something you hopefully get past. Or well, just complain about it like I do. In my opinion it's ruining English, and our teenagers are not the sharpest spoons in the drawer - but that's another opinion for another day.
The trick is sit down with it for a day or on the website. Then you can deal with all the fun the phone brings later on (still tackling that one myself). Follow some of your favorite websites, or companies, or search a generic topic and watch it develop. What I realized today is that Twitter is not something where you follow each person's individual page - you stop in to see what's going on. The benefit too is by following the right person in the right cities can also get you some great deals, OR into some free events. We all like Free right?
As people get better at this Twitter becomes more useful. It's a great place for resources and networking, and it's a great start before you move onto LinkedIn and then onto Facebook where you can really become friends with people. Personally, it has reinvented the job search and networking is a lot easier.
So don't be afraid... don't judge it like I did... now is the perfect time to give it a try. Take it from a previous Twitter hater who still has her issues (grrr Grammar!) but you might enjoy it.