I originally committed to using Twitter for 30 days. So far, I have enjoyed the service and intend to keep using it. My wife, Gail, and four of my five daughters are active. I have sure this is one of the reasons I am still using it.
Don’t know what Twittering is? Read my original post on this topic. If you want to know how to get started, read my Beginner’s Guide to Twitter.
If you are wondering why in the world you should consider it, here are twelve reasons:
- It will enable you to experience social networking first-hand. One of my pet peeves is people who pontificate on new technologies but have never actually used them. This is particularly annoying—but common—among CEOs. Real users can always tell the difference. There is no substitute for personal experience.
- It will make you a better writer. Twitter only allows you to post 140 characters at a time. As a result, you are forced to be concise. In my opinion, this is one of the hallmarks of good writing. Short messages. Short paragraphs. Short sentences.
- It will help you stay connected to people you care about. This is one of the few technologies I’ve found that actually contributes to community-building. In today’s busy world, it’s difficult to keep up with others. Twitter makes it easy—and fun.
- It will help you see a new side of your friends. In an odd sort of way, Twitter “humanizes” people and provides a context for better understanding them. If you follow me on Twitter, for example, you’ll quickly see that I get excited, bored, frustrated, and confused—sometimes all in the same day. You’ll also learn what is important to me and what drives me crazy.
- It will introduce you to new friends. I have now met several new people via Twitter. These have contributed to my life in small but significant ways. Gail and I have even had dinner with a couple that we met via Twitter.
- It is faster than text-messaging. In a sense Twitter is a universal text messaging system. You can broadcast to all of your “followers” (i.e., people who subscribe to your Twitter feed) or send a direct message to just one. As a result, I have almost completely stopped text messaging. The only time I use it is to reply to someone who messages me outside of Twitter.
- It will make you think about your life. As you answer the question, “What am I doing?” you start to see your life through the lens of the people following you. Interestingly, it has made me more intentional and thoughtful about my life.
- It will help you keep up with what people are talking about. Via Twitter, I have learned about hot books, cool software, breaking news, and even great restaurants. Because the information is coming from real people who care enough to Twitter about it, I have found it more valuable and authentic.
- It can create traffic for your blog or Website. I have noticed a 30% uptick in my blog traffic in the last 30 days. It may be related to the fact that I have been in the news more or have been writing on more controversial posts. However, I also think it is related to the fact that I am Twittering every time I post a new blog entry. This seems to have a viral effect.
- It requires a very small investment. Twitter itself is a free service. In terms of my time, I probably invest less than 20 minutes a day. Since “tweets” (i.e., posts) are limited to 140 charters or less, you can scan them in a second or two. Writing them usually takes less than 30 seconds.
- It can help build your personal “brand.” When people hear your name, what comes to mind? What is your reputation? What is the “brand promise”? Brands are built incrementally, one interaction at a time. Twitter gives you one more way to build your brand, one tweet at a time.
- It is fun! Twitter is just plain entertaining. Following your family and friends is kind of like watching reality TV. The difference is that you know the people and actually care about them. In this sense, it is even more fun, because you know more about the people from other contexts. Don’t believe me? Give it a try.
I’m sure there are some downsides to Twitter that I am either ignoring or don’t recognize. But I would rather jump into the fray and shape the future of social networks rather than sit on the sidelines and throw stones.
Question: How about you?
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i almost always see you’ve updated via twitter before it shows up in my google reader! twitter is awesome.
lately i’m wondering if you can take the temperature of someone’s work/life balance via twitter. some of my twittering friends tweet about work stuff at all hours of the day/night but seldom tweet about family time or fun. others seem to have a good balance. and then there is my friend who always wakes up late for work. :)
@anne: It would be cool to have a widget like WalkScore that measures work/life balance, using Twitter instead of your address. Maybe someone could do a mash-up.
Thanks for sharing your insights, Michael. Numbers 4 and 5 are the most important to me. The crux of Twitter is the transparency it calls for. Not only does Twitter allow you to see a new side of your friends, it allows you friends to see a new side of you. How else would we know that the president and CEO of a large publisher is saddened when his wife travels away and that he looks forward with excitement to her return? And that he spends time on the front porch talking with his daughters?
The masks come off and that’s a good thing.
Michael, your tweets are the reason I decided to jump on the twitter train. I figured if a successful (and human!) CEO could do it, than I certainly could as well.
I finish my Masters in May and am much more tied up in Facebook than any other social network but Twitter allows me to keep with my family (or rather, allows THEM to keep up with ME) since they aren’t on facebook. Our family is really enjoying it.
I just signed up for Tumblr as well. It seems to be a great way to share those things you find on the web that you just have to share with others (esp. things that you may not want to post on your main blog since it would be highly off-topic; I find this to be true with my finance blog.) Cheers!
This is an excellent post on why twitter is a great tool. I have a lot of people asking me why is twitter so good/great/useful, I think I’ll just point them to this article as an excellent list of reasons to use twitter.
It seems that twitter has become a very useful extension of blogging. So many of my friends didn’t want to start blogging because ‘nobody would want to read about their boring life.’ In some cases that might be true, but on the other hand I think we’re voyeuristic by nature and enjoy reading about other people’s everyday lives. Twitter offers an opportunity for that without the investment that a personal blog requires.
As Gregory Pittman said above, it is awesome to see a glimpse into the everyday life of a successful ceo and see the importance that his family plays in his life. Thanks Michael for your inspiring example.
Personal storytelling has been an effective communication tool for thousands of years and this just offers an easy way to continue that tradition.
I’m one of those that follow you on twitter and have subscribed to your blog for a number of months now.
I like this post!
Michael, I love to twitter. You’re on of my favorite people to follow. It helps me get great insights into some of the personal habits of great leaders!
“You are forced to be concise.” Amen.
Now, if we could only figure out the 140-character equivalent in real life.
@tommyl: I would love to put a 140-charter limit on some people in meetings. Can you imagine?
I really appreciate you being on something like Twitter. It’s very fun and interesting to see what you’re up to.
Twitter has been a huge disappointment. It’s unfocused and inefficient. It meets a need that doesn’t exist. However, it makes a nice little microblog in the margin of our regular blog. And I’m just narcissistic and self-absorbed enough that I imagine that others find these insipid little tidbits of my life to be entrancing and addictive. So I continue. In fact, I imagine that feeling a certain amount of self-importance is essential to one’s ultimate uptake of the twittering experience.
great post, another in a series of great reasons to twitter. it seems that eventually everyone who starts twittering ends up writing a blog post on their reasons why.
this is one of the better ones. i’ll refer others to it.
i also like following your tweets, and furthermore i enjoy following your whole family together. (your wife and daughters currently using) it’s fun to see the interaction you have with each other and how your lives intersect with one another.
Great post. I’m doing the same thing right now, testing Twitter.
I actually started doing so for a campaign I’m managing as a way to take aim at younger, more tech savvy voters. Now I find myself doing it as well.
I just wanted to say to all of my dad’s “fans” (as we like to put it) that twitter really has helped me keep up with my dad’s busy life. Its been pretty incredible to be able to actually know what he does during the day, while traveling, at the office, etc. I’ve always heard about my dad’s professional life at the end of the day, but it makes it feel 100x more real when I actually get to hear about it along the way!
And p.s. its also helped him keep up with me…not sure if thats a good or bad thing!
Mike points 2 3 and 4 are significant to me.
I like the concept but struggle with keeping it in check.Inbetween juggling emails and phone calls all day I find myself communicating more with strangers than friends. You’ve handled this well it seems. I’m just tired of being “linked in” to big crowd of whom I know few and have the phone number of none. These are fun things but real relationships grow on the phone or at Starbucks meetings and I’m missing too many of those.
But don’t you get tired of thinking about your self so much? I have not yet been convinced that anybody is or even should be interested in “what am I doing”. I do not need encouragement to be more self-absorbed. I’d like the over-arching theme of my life to be more thinking of God and others.
@Renee: Like any conversation, I don’t think it is either/or. It’s a dialogue. I am probably reading ten Tweats for everyone I write—maybe more.
Practically speaking, I think it is very other-centered. I am following what other people are doing and, as a result, feel more connected to them. I also have more to talk about when I am physically with them, because of this connection.
I agree with Renee!
2 Big reason not to twitter -
1. Who cares what time you drink your coffee in the morning, what time you go to bed, or where you buy your groceries, or where you’re traveling…please get over yourself.
2. Don’t you think that your time would be better spent on the company that you have been put in the position to oversee than twittering, after all, your strategic plans has cost a lot of jobs for families in need at no cost to you.
Twitter is a tool that helps to share tips, ideas, micro-journal, et.
Justo Llecllish
http://www.faxjuvenil.com
@Nobody:
As I mentioned in the post, I spend all of about ten minutes a day Twittering. As the CEO, part of my job is to explore the future, so that my company can be prepared for it. With technology changing as quickly as it does, simple participation is a cheap, powerful way to do that.
Thanks,
Mike
@Nobody: I would venture that Mr. Hyatt spends more time thinking about his company in a day than most people do in a week. He makes a very good point that looking forward into new practices is crucially important to his job as a strategic leader.
@Mr. Hyatt: I believe your Tweets show a wonderful work-life balance that many professionals (and even fewer C-level managers) lack. This is further evidenced by your daughter, Marissa’s, comment above.
Okay… you brought me out of the Twittering closet… I admit, I Twit. Thanks for sharing your days.
You may already be doing this, but I realized this morning that I can use Jott to Twitter and use TwitterSync on Facebook to sync my Facebook status with Twitter–simply amazing! Now if I could just get my kids to actually want to let me know what they are up to…
Thanks. I just created an account at Twitter. My name there is radical81.
Thanks for this thoughtful post, Michael… I’ve added it to my very low-tech hodge-podgy Twitter Newbie FAQ (http://butwait.pbwiki.com/Twitter-Newbies-FAQ); I find the phenomenon of Twitter-inspired evangelizing interesting!
Michael,
Just discovered your BLOG because of one of my Tweeples I follow.
Look forward to reading more!
Ripple On!!!
It’s true Twittering gets you more traffic. I also found your blog from tweet =)
Good reasons you got on your list.
Thanks!
@inspiroi
Now Using Twitter
I’VE STARTED TO USE TWITTER. I plan to use it for microblogging — the brief, remaindered links that I have usually stored up and then posted in bulk, leaving Seat1A for longer items. I’ve updated my blog template to include
Todd Albertson wrote in his blog “To Tweat or not to Tweat; That Is the Question” (http://www.toddalbertson.com/?p=75) that “12. I now know the intimate details of the comings and goings of many folks, their friends and families. The particulars that people are putting out on Twitter are the same details that kidnapers, robbers, or stalkers would kill to know.”
I enjoy reading your blog, but I think you make the mistake he mentions of giving out far too many personal details!
@Edna: And the really interesting thing is that I wrote an entire book on privacy in 2001. I have utterly abandoned it!
Twitter is for sure a great thing. That is how I found this site. Michael you have a decent blog. I like reading it. Keep up the good work.
Ohh, I don’t know, I’m still undecided, and I’m so techni challenged, I can’t get the electric can-opener to obey me. And, just recent, I posted a blog about how society is eroding the capacity for human attention with text–email and such. Twitter sounds fun, great for professionals, but I personally feel I may need to go back to voice; the building block needed for intimacy — wisdom, which I find has been lacking for me… Maybe in another five years I’ll think different. Thanks, Michael
Great and interesting perspectives, Mike. Very useful.
Imran
http://neternity.org
Great article. I linked it to my entry here: http://www.fallinglast.com/2008/12/09/dont-fear-the-tweeter/
Great article. I do have a twitter account but do not use it as often as I should. I will start paying more attention to it tomorrow!
Know I’m a little late on seeing the article but it’s new to me… Thanks from a Twitter Newby.
Kevin
http://www.twitter.com/kboon
Twitter is an excellent ministry tool even if you don’t like it for personal communications.
The 12 Reasons above give good insight into getting good value for your personal tweets, but the church/ministry side of Twitter is also important. Some of those would include:
Remind church members of events; drive traffic to the church website; effectively target segments of the congregation (and not send irrelevant information to other segments); pass along urgent prayer requests; keep church members informed of last-minute changes; reinforcing aspects of weekly messages and a whole lot more.
If you’re interested, check out http://www.twitterforchurches.com
Long time Michael. We met when I was CIO at IFL. You need to take a look at twitterforchurches.com from my dear friend @anthonycoppedge.
I have followed you for sometime, and enjoy your tweets. Keep it coming…and yes, be a shaper, not a stone thrower!
@marksnewton
Twitter is for very very busy people with a a herd of people needing to follow what they do, otherwise to me it is social suicide.
I have met more people through twitter than any other online network, and everything can be tailored to your specific interests and skills, great article
I agree Mike Twitter is an essential tool!
Great Post Michael. I think you've sold me on Twitter…will start using it soon.
love you tooo
Wow those are good reasons! I'm going to create an account now… then look for a good twitwork to join.
I was reply hoping to find some usefull reasons for Twitted or even to use it. 99% of the posts here, hoewver, were simply “Me too!” comments. Nothing new, nothing important, nothing compelling. Almost all uses were centered on the importance (or supposed importance) of “Me.” The only targeted use I saw was for notification of updated info to a self-selecting group. Self-limited input of information can be very limiting to ones development, IMHO. Enjoy Twitter, if you want, but stop trying to rationalize your playtime. :-)
9, 10 and 11 are my favorites. However, 12 is good too, it's great to have fun also.
I think it creates synergy. I am motivated by Max Lucado or Tricia Goyer or other writers. I am comforted when someone hits a brick wall in their WIP. (I'm not the only one!) It allows me to share a link to my blog and a topic. It has even brought in a couple of freelance jobs for publishers. I don't spend a lot of time on it. I check in a few times a day. Sometimes I find great gems, like this one. Thanks, Michael.
Great post and all excellent reasons Michael. Personally I have been amazed at the how much more knowledgeable I am about what's going on in the world (everywhere) and what new technologies are out, coming out, or in the works. When asked to describe Twitter I've said a number of times it's a tool that helps you learn almost through osmosis. By involving yourself properly you cannot help but benefit from it.
Just wanted to say thanks for the helpful articles about this and twitter!