Twitter demonstrates how publishing on social networks is evolving into two-way participation. Successful users create conversations – not content. Communities form around these conversations.

Twitter was formed by Evan Williams, Biz Stone, and Jack Dorsey in 2006 as a dispatch service accessible via texting on cell phones. They were working on Odeo, a podcasting company at the time. The service was used as an in-house method for contacting one another with status updates on projects and tasks needing urgent attention. However, it morphed into a whole different tool from there.

Twitter bears a frequent misconception by those unfamiliar with it. “It’s people telling you what they’re doing at every single minute of the day. I just don’t care.”

When it morphed into a popular forum, Twitter’s user base was predominantly 18-24 year olds, and such postings were common. The age and motivation of its user, like Facebook, has likewise changed in its first three years.

Co-founder Jack Dorsey said, “The working name was just ‘Status’ for a while. When we came up with this vehicle, we were trying to give it a good name. We liked the SMS (short message system, or text messaging) aspect, and how you could update your friends and colleagues from anywhere and receive from anywhere — even in very obscure places where you wouldn’t be able to have cell phone reception.

“We wanted to capture that in the name — we wanted to capture that feeling: the physical sensation that you’re buzzing your friend’s pocket. It’s like buzzing all over the world. So we did a bunch of name-storming, and we came up with the word ‘twitch,’ because the phone kind of vibrates when it moves. But ‘twitch’ is not a good product name because it doesn’t bring up the right imagery. So we looked in the dictionary for words around it, and we came across the word ‘twitter,’ and it was just perfect. The definition was ‘a short burst of inconsequential information,’ and ‘chirps from birds.’ And that’s exactly what the product was.” (Wikipedia, 2010)

Twitter achieved popular fame and usage when it won an award at the 2007 SXSW Festival, the annual technology/music conference in Austin, Texas.

Twitter was estimated to have achieved 18.1 million registered users in 2010, and, that year alone, attracted over 10 million visitors per month. While its traffic grew 2,500% from 2007-2010, its user base has grown more slowly. This signals that Twitter is not for everyone.

According to Twitter’s blog, about 50% of Twitterers follow and are followed by just 10 people (“Twitter Power” by Joel Comm). That means you can be in the top 10% of Twitter users by attracting only 80 followers.

And who are these Twitterers? In 2010, Twitter’s largest age group was 35-44 year olds, with 60% of the service’s traffic originating outside the US.

More so, Twitter has attracted high profile users such as the 44^th U.S. President Barack Obama who used it as a very successful campaign tool during his run in 2008. The American Red Cross has continued to use it as a way to communicate updates about local disasters.

Not-for-Profit organizations have also utilized Twitter to raise instant funds — at the click of a button – that keeps them afloat during times where accessing local support is less likely.

What It Is, What It Isn’t

Like a micro-version of Facebook, Twitter lets you set up a brief profile, post a photo of yourself, and send status updates of personal or professional interest to you and those who “follow” you.

Unlike Facebook, Twitter, to date, does not let you post series of photos, audio or video recordings, or long chunks of content.

Facebook is a well-rounded, complete picture of you and your life – depending on how full you make your profile. If all you do is complete your profile but never interact with Facebook, people can still find you, perhaps contact you via the information you share, and get an up-to-date impression of who you are (or who you portray yourself to be).

One of the agreed upon values of Facebook comes from the content in your profile and your interaction with your friends on the site.

Twitter, in contrast, is more like a stream of consciousness tool. It includes the basics like your photo, your location, your website link, and your latest tweets, or postings to Twitter. But its core value comes from how you engage in the conversations you follow. To make Twitter relevant to you or your followers, it will require participation, not passivity. Like a garden, it must be attended to or the connections dry up.

Whom you follow will make a big difference in how you tweet, too.

Where Twitter differs from text messaging is that your tweets are posted to your stream (a web page that shows your tweets in reverse chronological order) on the web. People who choose to follow your streams are “followers” and the people you follow are “follows.”

For example, if I follow a person and notice that his tweets are frequent but adding no value to the conversation (e.g., “Oh I like this a lot!” with a link to web site with a picture of kittens) then I usually unfollow after a week of valueless tweets. Don’t be shy about unfollowing. To unfollow means to remove a person from the list of people you follow.

Twitter requires consistent interaction to derive value from it. Try to deliver the kind of value you want to derive from it.

Saying A Lot In A Little Space

You get 140 characters and that is all.

The 140 character limit comes from the service being originally designed for use primarily on cellphones. If you use text messaging features on your mobile phone, there is a limit to how long your messages can be. This is a technical limitation imposed by the cellphone carriers.

These short messages are referred to as “tweets” in the Twitter nomenclature. They are also referred to as microblogging since your tweets are essentially very short blog entries, but tweet is the most common reference.

You can follow or unfollow anyone at any time. You can also block someone from following you. Notifications are sent to you when a new follower begins following your tweets, but nothing is communicated when you are unfollowed by a person. The same applies when you follow and unfollow others.

By posting your tweets on a web page, it’s like sending a text message to hundreds or more of people with one simple effort.

The value of Twitter lies in who you follow, who follows you, and what you tweet about.

Twitterspeak

Before moving forward, let’s orient you to how people and activities are commonly referred to among the Twitterati.

Twitter uses avian references to itself (its logo is a stylized bird). There are many bird-related references and mashed up terms beginning with “tw-.”

For example, the people whom you follow can be referred to as “tweeple.” Topical conversations are called “twendz.”

The jargon might leave you feeling like Elmer Fudd so use the terms that you are comfortable with but be aware of what they all mean. Visit Twitter Glossary for a complete dictionary of popular terms.

As you read tweets, you will notice that a tweet will contain a reference to another person but it will have the @ symbol before the person’s name. User names always have the @ symbol before their name. To refer to another person in a tweet with the @ symbol before her name is akin to pointing at the person in real life. It directs the reader to finding the person by clicking on her user name.

Another common use of one’s user name is at public events. Next time you attend a conference, look around to see who is using their Twitter handle instead of their name or below it. This is a good practice to start with your next name tag. By doing so, you make yourself publicly findable in a crowd and simplify the connection process.

Twitter as Community

As I’ve mentioned in the beginning of this chapter, many people mistakenly assume that Twitter is for narcissistic people who want to announce to the world that they are hungry; that they are walking to the store; that they are bored at work, stuck in traffic, using the bathroom, and a thousand other mundane aspects of daily life.

Yes, in fact, there are many who use it that way. But I recommend you do not follow them.

Instead, look for people who are using Twitter wisely. Either as an extension of other online activities they practice, or who use Twitter as their primary social networking tool.

For example, Twitter has become an extension of how people use their blogs. When the writer posts a new entry on his blog, through a simple addition of a utility to his web site, he can post a tweet that he just added a new posting to his blog.

This immediacy is what empowers Twitter to provide a real-time stream of content. Like a virtual postcard updating friends, it gets sent out to audiences (followers) that are usually interested.

For example, many top blogs such as TechCrunch and Mashable post tweets about new articles on their site as they are posted as a way to drive traffic to their sites. Before Twitter, they waited on users to visit their sites. With Twitter, users can quickly scan a day’s worth of postings by headline and click through to the ones they want to read. This drives people to use the sites more often than before. Such attention may facilitate direct purchasing for people selling products or services via the websites.

Twitter also makes sharing content very simple. By “re-tweeting” another person’s tweet, all of your followers see an item that you have deemed interesting enough to share. This passive endorsement suggests to your followers that you thought it was worth passing along, so it’s implied that they will find it useful, too.

This draws on the concept of crowdsourcing, where we rely on the judgments of groups of people to divine what is worthwhile and what is not. The good stuff bubbles to the top while the mediocre sinks downward to microniches or obscurity.

If celebrity news is your thing, Twitter was made for you. Nearly every celebrity around has a Twitter following and either has a ghost twitterer to update fans or tweets herself to be closer to her following. If famous people are your thing, get ready to drink from the fire hose like never before.

Twitter and You

If you choose to blog, and you blog frequently, installing a simple Plug-In (a small piece of programming that adds new functionality to your blog) to your blog will copy your blog post’s headline to become a tweet. It will automatically send this out and include a link to your blog posting. Tweeting done.If you use Facebook primarily to update your social networking status, there is a plug-in available via Facebook that performs the same function.

Pay attention that you don’t exceed the 140 character limit to avoid tweeting partial entries. That may confuse readers.

If you use Twitter as your primary, or optional, update tool, you’ll find it easy, if not addictive, to use throughout your day.

When you first join Twitter, it’s a good idea to read what others tweet about for a while and get used to the lingo, formatting and topics. When you’re ready to join the conversation, jump in. Just remember, add value to your reader and you’ll get back value or at least a more substantial following.

A great way to start tweeting is to use the “share this” feature found on most content sites, like newspapers and magazines. These publishers want their content to spread like a lively virus across the web so they add this feature to make it simple to do so.

When an article grabs your interest, and you think people in your immediate circle would also like it as well, like one birdie to another, tweet it.

This approach is part of how you build an online persona that establishes what your interests are and areas of expertise.

For example, I know an interview coach who frequently posts links to advice columns that discuss questions he addresses with his clients. This is a value-added benefit to his followers and clients alike. Intermittently, he inserts a tweet that encourages you to take a free 30-minute consultation with him to improve your interviewing skills. Check him out on Twitter by clicking on FIND PEOPLE and searching for  @interviewcoach.

Many small businesses have begun using Twitter as a way to create professional visibility and promote their company’s offerings.

Healeo (@healeo) is a health food store in the urban neighborhood of Seattle called Capitol Hill. Healeo tweets throughout the day when they begin serving fresh batches of soup and pastas made that day. They tweet about beverage specials; that the visiting massage therapist is on site and available, or just comments about how busy their store is on a given day.

These tweets cost nothing to produce aside from a few minutes of time. They generate business for this small company, help Healeo measure their audience, and determine which followers use the coupon codes that only appear on Twitter.

Dell Computers is another commonly cited case study of business using Twitter for fostering and tracking sales. Dell uses Twitter to promote specially discounted computers, sales that are not available anywhere else. By using this free tool, they estimate generating an additional $2 million in sales through their tweeting alone. In the old days, $2 million might have been Dell’s entire advertising budget.

In our personal lives, Twitter offers an excellent resource for finding answers to questions.

Whether you’re a student conducting research or a traveler looking a good hotel while on a trip to Chicago, you can tweet to ask for referrals – or slog through pages of user reviews from two years ago and make your best judgment call from there.

Whatever your need or desire, Twitter is a tool for putting your query out there for a quick answer. And when you see others asking questions, try to provide a useful answer.

Since this is all done publicly, you are adding to the knowledge of others along the way.

Flashmobs, or Instant Gatherings

Despite the strong arm efforts of repressive governments to limit or suppress free speech, technology offers clever workarounds that are near impossible to shut down.

Twitter has proven its usefulness among dissenters and protesters time and again as a tool for organizing, communicating banned information and locating one another.

For example, Iranians opposed to the current regime have used Twitter to great effect to organize themselves beyond the purview of government officials. When the law limits how many people can gather in a place at any given time without a permit, Twitter lets everyone gather simultaneously without skirting the law – and achieve their collective goals.

URL Shortening on Twitter

When you post a link, the link may be longer than your 140 character limit. To work around this, use a URL shortening service like Bit.ly or Twitsnip.

This online service converts your long URL (the web site link) down to a small URL so there is more room for your tweet. With Bit.ly, you will have the option to accept the random series of numbers and letters it generates or customize the URL with plain English of your choosing. Sign up for a free account to customize the link.

An added advantage with Bit.ly is that it also tracks how many of your links are clicked on. If you are into data, that’s a fun measurement to watch as you tweet more and more links to stories across the web.

I have used these Bit.ly customized links throughout this series as a shorthand to point you to various off-site resources.

While we’ll cover the steps to joining Twitter and setting up your profile in the next section, this unit focused on how you can utilize Twitter for the best results.

Build Your Nest, Little Birdie

Twitter is a terrific and powerful social media tool. Want to talk about getting started or how you like it so far? Post it in the Comments section for a response.

We once had a friend who dabbled in everything. His partner said if he were a superhero, his name would be The Piddler.

Sure, we all start some things that we don’t finish. But abandoning things when they lose immediate interest is a losing approach to achieving anything.

Barnes’ piece is a little long, and his comments about “attractive girls” seem condescending. Still, read it. Then comment: what have you dabbled in and dropped? What attracts you to a new activity or person?

Comments?

The entry has one thing right: submitting resumes to “Careers@Company.com” is the same as tossing them into a blackhole. There are too many others going that route, so you have to find alternative paths to get noticed.

Read on, fellow seekers.

Like most of us job searching, I spend a lot of time online these days. Probably more than is healthy some times. But I also get out, meet people and exchange a lot of information, too.

This is a great example of another resource I want to share with all my fellow seekers. Using resources like these will help you prepare for the next step, because it’s going to be a long and big one.

Yes, waking up to “45,000 new layoffs by Caterpillar, Starbucks and Sprint” this morning was a downer. You can grind over the daily saddening announcements, or focus on positioning yourself for the next opportunity. I take the latter because at the end of the day, I know I’ve been productive even if I didn’t get a paycheck for it. And I’m that much closer to ending the numbing state of job search.

Great advice to remember when creating your blog postings on timely topics – you don’t know who’s reading your work or how they might use it for their own purposes.

RSS had been hailed as the next next thing, but it failed to deliver. Is Tweeting the next incarnation – and one that seems to be captivating audiences?

As Leary concludes, though, social media is only as good as those who use the technology.

What are positive ways to promote the use of Twitter and the like?

-Fundraising drive for a radio station: hourly updates with links to contribute online

-Volunteerism drive for organizations for one-time events

-Direct line of communication with clients in support relationships (e.g., substance abuse programs; psychological counseling)