Trending Upward

There have been a ton of posts and news lately about Twitter. The mini-blogging platform has been everywhere. The presidential election was a hot topic (and still is!), hashtags are all the rage, one user raised $10K for a dowry using Twitter, and it’s even seen by the Army as a possible communication tool for terrorists.

Higher education blogs have mainly focused on how Twitter can help as a marketing, recruitment, advising tool. There are so many great uses for Twitter both in higher education and for corporations.

What about us Twitter-users as individuals, though? How does it affect what we do, our sense of community, our sense of professional involvement?

It’s fantastic to talk about Twitter as a tool to help our students and customers. I’m completely on board with that.

Let’s do something that I don’t like to do a lot on this blog, though.

Let’s talk about us!

There are so many people I’ve talked to that just don’t get Twitter. They see it as a waste of time, a distraction with no possible advantages except for goofing off.

I cannot agree *and* disagree more.

Twitter is a communication tool. Like any other communication tool it can be used to do anything *you* want it to do. It can be used as a time waster or a professional development tool. It’s up to you.

Last Friday at lunch, I was talking with some friends of mine at work about the usefulness of Twitter. One said that he was trying to encourage his wife to use Twitter, but that she just didn’t get it. She didn’t understand how anyone can possibly get any useful information out of, “just woke up and about to take a shower … bummer … no clean towels.”

The great part about Twitter, though, is that you can choose your friends. That’s why it’s so important to read others past tweets before following them. If you don’t think you see anything useful, no harm done. Just don’t follow them. Remember, it’s not the tool, it’s how you use it.

I follow many people, some I know, some I don’t. I follow friends from home (Syracuse), friends from work (Penn State), and *friends* I’ve never even met before. All of the *friends* I’ve never met before are either people I consider either professional peers or experts in fields in which I’m interested (marketing, usability, web analytics, web design, web development).

Twitter is a two-way street, though. Not only can you learn from your *friends* but they learn from you! How cool is that! Everyone is an expert at something. Offer your expertise!

Why do I use Twitter? First and foremost, I use Twitter to meet new people with the same professional interests that I have. Because of Twitter, I’ve learned so much from people I’ve never even met. It’s a troubleshooter’s dream. If you’ve made sure you’re following people with your interests, you can always throw questions out to the community. Users respond within seconds or minutes. I’ve even tweeted about being frustrated with Microsoft Word or with Omniture SiteCatalyst. Within seconds I had some *friends* replying to offer help. What’s great is that when your friends ask questions, you can offer them help as well.

Some people use Twitter for social purposes only, and that’s fine too. Although I’ve learned a lot professionally, I’ve also learned so much more about my friends and the people with whom I work. I know more about my co-workers children, when my friends aren’t feeling well, what they watch on TV, the list goes on.

Keeping business and pleasure separate. But what happens when you have social *friends* and professional *friends* – how can you keep the two separate using Twitter? When I’m at work, I may not care who’s had their second cup of coffee, but I do care about new features Google Analytics just implemented … or a web analytics report that a *virtual* colleague just made available … or when a friend has an idea for a new module that may help our Drupal install … or whatever I may be doing at work that day. That’s where Twitter clients come in handy.

Twitter clients. Like IM clients, Twitter has a lot of clients to help you … well … tweet better. Arguably the most popular Twitter client is Twhirl, a client I’ve used extensively and love. But there are many more. That blog post is quite old and more have popped up since it was written. For instance, my new favorite Twitter client is TweetDeck, which is still in beta.

Why TweetDeck rocks. TweetDeck lets you segment your friends. You usually know what type of things your friends tweet about. Figure out what you want to pay attention to that day and create a group centered around that topic. For instance, if you’re at work and your a Drupal developer, you may want to group your *Drupal* friends together and pay more attention to their tweets at that time. This doesn’t mean you can’t see all tweets. It just means that you now have one channel dedicated to the *friends* who usually tweet about Drupal. Very cool.

Creating groups in TweetDeck:

I can create as many groups as I want and choose which ones to display.

Ok, so I downloaded a cool Twitter client, but how do I find people to follow? There are a couple of ways. First, you can *friend* people you know are on Twitter. Then look through their list of friends. You can choose to follow your friends of your friends.

Another way is to search for topics that interest you. Use Twitter search and type in keywords that match your interests. You’ll get all tweets that include your search word. For example, here’s a recent search for the word omniture:

I can then click on any Twitter name and scan the profile and tweets of that person. If I like what I read, I click follow. It’s that simple.

Another way to search is through hashtags. A hashtag is word you embed in your post with a “#” in the front of it. You can then search for the hashtag to see posts pertaining to your topic.

I follow many people in the web analytics community who tag their tweets with #wa. I can simply go to Twitter Search and search for #wa.

Just like the first search I did for omniture, I click on a Twitter name of someone who’s tweeted something interesting and read their profile and tweets. If I like what I see, I follow that person.

Conferences and communication. Another fantastic use for Twitter is at a conference. If attendees can agree on a hashtag to use, they can then tweet through their sessions. It’s kind of like live blogging, but on a smaller scale. I can tell you from experience that it’s invaluable for those who are *not* attending the conference. For instance, I was able to stay up-to-date with what was happening at the recent Stamats conference in Florida. Attendees tweeted through their sessions and used the #stamats08 hashtag. You get real-time updates on the action.

The bottom line. I guess the point of this post is that Twitter is whatever you want it to be. It’s a professional development tool. It’s a networking tool. It’s a time-waster. Most people who don’t *get it* think that users are only updating their status with mundane things like, “going for my second cup of coffee.” That can’t be further from the truth. If that’s not how *you* want to use it, then don’t. The burden is on the user to search for friends. Choose wisely.

So, what do you use Twitter for?

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