Twitter’s influence has been growing by leaps and bounds. It is one of the fastest growing social media platforms on the Internet. But let’s face it, not everyone is on Twitter. In fact, even if you are on Twitter, you are still in the minority in terms of absolute numbers. Chances are that most of your family and friends haven’t taken the plunge.
So why not? Why don’t your friends Twitter?
Please take 30 seconds to take the poll below. Once it is complete, I will post the results, along with my response to each objection. Hopefully, this will help you convince your friends to give Twitter a try.
Click here to take the poll.
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I like the screenshot from Tweetdeck – a little glimpse into how @MichaelHyatt manages his twitter feed :-)
The Poll lacked 2 major options for me:
1) They don’t know how it will benefit their personal lives
2) They don’t use ANY social media (I have a lot of friends like this)
Some people are complaining that IntenseDebate is not working for them. This is a test to make sure it is working.
Definitely buggy. If you want to post, you must register. The guest features and Open ID do not work. When I was posting, it kept jumping up to the beginning of the post, and even when I scrolled back down, it would jump right back up (I just got IE8, so it may not be playing well with it).
I'm one of the people not on Twitter, and it's by choice. I have two reasons. One is time. Bluntly put, it's something that could easily turn into a huge time waster. I'm working on a novel, trying to get it finished, and there are far too many things that give the impression of productivity but really aren't. What part of my book wouldn't I write today because I took time out to do Twitter? The other reason is privacy. People give away WAY too much information online. I've seen people talk online about the drugs they're taking (and we're not talking aspirin). The more opportunities to write about themselves, the more likely people are to give away stuff about themselves. I'm on Linked in for my writing organization, and the profile requires me to fill an employer and an occupation. While I want to participate with my organization, my employer and occuation is not the world's business. I had to put not disclosed for both of those.
Linda, I think it takes less time that you think. I blogged about that specific issue here.
With regard to privacy, obviously you have to be smart. Just like anywhere else–your Twitter, your Facebook page, your blog, or the bio on your novel–you can control what gets out there.
Finally, as an author, you will be a lot more successful if you build a "tribe." It has never been easier than now. I explain how in a series of articles on my blog. I suggesting starting here. Thanks.
Two other responses I've heard: hate using computers/gadgets and prefer oral communication. Like most anything, benefits from Twitter come after taking an initial period of exploration. I've found interesting discussions and sharing including #followreader and #fridayreads. Something I didn't expect to find was a mini-magazine like @tweetthemeat or @Nanoism. Your post on managing Twitter followers really helps the new users from becoming overwhelmed.
Feedback on your poll: Thanks for making it a quick one that doesn't involve tons of different pages!
Love your site. I have never actually visited it before, but the layout is easy and organized.
Great poll.
Thanks, Sheri. Welcome!
You left out one answer that came to me on first seeing the question…
They think it's stupid!
Count me as one of those who thinks it's stupid. If fact I'm only reading this blog instead of the novel I want to read because I'm taking a class on social networking and this blog came up in a link. What a waste of my time!
I agree with Grace and others. Most people that I know don't use Twitter because they think it is stupid or pointless. I can't get my wife to use it at all, but she will read my feed once it's scooped to Facebook.
Michael, I've just begun to experiment with twitter, in part because of your enthusiasm for it, but I'd like your thoughts on effective twittering if you have 2 or more sets of very different "friends." I'm a vendor to the insurance industry for my "real" job, but also a creative writer. Seems like the things I would twitter about for one group would bore the other group to death, and vice versa…
Did you write 'friend's' instead of 'friends' on purpose? :-)
– punctuation pedant