Needles and Plastic: How to get value from using Twitter

How to get value from using Twitter

18 January 2010

There's no doubt Twitter has reached the Peak of Inflated Expectations on Gartner's Hype Curve. Twitter was number four on the Google top ten of fastest rising search terms in 2009 and I lost count of the mentions I saw on old-media TV news shows.

Reproduced via Creative Commons licence from Wikipedia

I suspect it is reaching the Slope of Enlightenment for many, but for me it's well on the Plateau of Productivity. I believe I get value from using Twitter, because it helps me to connect and interact with people. I learn things from using it and have a bit of fun too.

So how can you get value from Twitter?

For a start, ignore the hype and do your own thing. Like most other internet tools, there's many ways to use Twitter, for good and evil, and just as many reasons. The only way to find value is to try it. It's free, so what have you got to lose except some time?

The standard Twitter interface provides a helpful question to get you started, with the "What's happening?" opening line (up until November 2009 it used to say 'What are you doing?').

Don't take the kick-start literally; most Tweeters seem to be ignoring it now, just making a statement or comment, sharing some interesting thing they've come across, or replying to someone else's tweets. Say what you like.

Getting started

You can look at someone's tweets (aka Twitter posts) without subscribing or "following" them, without them knowing in fact (don't worry you're not stalking them, just watching their Twitter account). Simply click on their linked Twitter name or their profile icon, and you'll see their tweets.

One of the factors about Twitter that can be annoying in the early stages is that people who tweet a lot can completely dominate your Twitter box. So initially only follow a few people you find value in, or you will be overwhelmed with tweets until you get the hang of it.

To expand your list of people you're following, look at the people you follow to see who they follow. You can do this by looking at the collection of icons on the right column of their Twitter page, as shown at the right. Hover over the image to get their name, and click to visit their Twitter page.

Do look at the profiles of individuals – it can help you weed out the spammers and noise makers. You'll notice under their profile that you can also see a list of people following them – this can be another way of expanding your list.

Yet another way is to search for people you know, or know of, by using the "Find People" option at the top right of the Twitter page. Cull your list from time-to-time, and don't be afraid to remove someone from your list if you don't find them interesting anymore: it's your list.

Over time I've found the most use in following friends and colleagues, and people who I find interesting, but I know people who just follow their competitors, or their favourite sports teams. Twitter can be used for many purposes. As a way of keeping in touch with mates it can be more useful than online chat, because you don't all have to be online at once. You can leave a comment and others can see it whenever they get the chance.

Following the pack

Despite the way many people behave, there's no race to get as many followers as you can. In the early days the etiquette seemed to be if someone follows you, you follow them. I no longer do this, mostly due to the use of Twitter by spammers and business people promoting themselves (see my comments about corporate tweeters below).

Frankly, I don't give a damn if you've got 24 followers or 24,000. If what you have to say is not interesting, I won't follow you. This is no different than any other web site or blog – content is king. Again.

Be wary of corporate tweeters

This was one of the biggest trends in Twitter in 2009 – corporates, the media, and organisations catching up with the rest of the web, especially after being told that "social media" is the latest thing and they should be doing it. And they are, by the truck-load.

I tried following news sources like TV3, Stuff, and the like, but the noise factor just became very high: they post too much. Posting every news headline actually wasn't that interesting and for me it wasn't a good way to consume news (I prefer RSS feeds into Netvibes).

In general, I have found people using Twitter to promote their business mostly annoying and more than often the Twitter equivalent of spammers. This includes those self-employed people who seem to think Twitter exists simply for them to promote themselves.

And naturally there are actual spammers and dodgey purveyors wanting to follow me and for me to follow them. Yes folks, these people have invaded Twitter also. These days I block them when Twitter sends me the subscribe alert. Click on the offending party's twitter link when you're logged into Twitter and you can Block or Report them. Feels satisfying every time.

In the image below you see a typical Twitter spammer in my Followers list. This guy has two Twitter profiles to promote his accursed video products. The ironic thing is he maintains a blog telling you how to market yourself on the internet using video. I wouldn't take any of his advice, because your customers will end up hating you. Block these types and definitely don't encourage people like this by following them.

If you look around, you'll notice people who appear to have heaps of followers often mostly have spammers following them. Sure it makes your numbers look good, but spam followers aren't contributing anything useful to the Twitter-sphere or the web. Deny them the satisfaction.

Even people I respect have crossed this line. For instance, Guy Kawasaki, the author, innovator, and former Apple employee now runs a web company called AllTop. His tweets are almost exclusively about that web site, which I don't see the point of nor care about. Very annoying. Very spammy. I unsubscribed.

The trick to spotting a good business tweeting is to look for those providing some added value to their product or service, not just trying to sell you something by posting a continuous stream of links back to their own web site.

Someone I think tweets very well is the Christchurch City Art Gallery. They write in a fun way, give me heads-up notices about things happening at the gallery, and don't tweet so much that it becomes annoying.

Who cares?

I've heard people (interestingly, often people in IT) say "why would I want to follow Britney Spears" or "who cares what someone had for breakfast?" Indeed, who does care?

Looking at the figures around popular Twitter sites, quite a lot of people it would seem. The New Idea sells thousands of magazines but that doesn't mean I want to read it. Like so much broadcast media, there's a lot of pap out there, and you have to be the judge of what you think is good and worthwhile.

These negative remarks also show an ignorance of how Twitter is used and who is using it. If you're not interested in what celebrities have to say, don't follow them. But if your favourite movie or pop star tweets, then it might be fun to follow them and maybe even interact with them (note: speculation abounds on whether or not celebrities in Twitter are really them or their PR person).

One of the most popular tweeters in the world, Stephen Fry, has over a million followers and his account has been verified by Twitter as being genuine. People who follow Stephen, and who he follows back, can make direct comments just to him. There aren't many other ways in the world for you or I to do this, and it's this ability to connect and potentially interact with people that is the most fascinating and valuable thing for me about Twitter.

Lateral writing

Other Tweeters I've asked about the trivia aspect of Twittering report that really interesting conversations often spring out of someone commenting about something as innocuous as their lunch. Often it comes down to how clever with words a Tweeter is.

For many Twitter users, the challenge of saying something interesting in only 140 characters is part of the fun, being clever with the language and thinking about their audience. One Tweeter (who prefers to remain anonymous on this quote) told me:

Twitter for me is mostly about fun with words, about sculpting 140 characters into something meaningful, funny, and informative – regardless of subject matter.

It all comes down to thinking laterally, being relaxed with the tool, finding your own suitable level of formality and humour, and not taking it too seriously.

Twitter tools

Another good way to get value from Twitter is to try some of the many Twitter apps available. The Twitter web site is not the only way to participate. These applications help you manage multiple tweets (TweetDeck and HootSuite), put Twitter feeds on your Netvibes, WordPress, Facebook, or Google home page, or provide a custom Twitter app for your iPhone or mobile phone.

There are so many of these, and new ones appear every day, so it's beyond the scope of this article to recommend any more. Try a Google search or ask someone you're following in Twitter what they use. At the bottom of each tweet in Twitter, in small letters, you can also see what twitter app that person tweeted from, like in this example below:

Following the "from…" link is another way of finding cool Twitter apps.

Other opinions

Writer and blogger Adrienne Rewi has found value in using Twitter.
Coach and entrepreneur Cory Miller was surprised by how useful it is.
Michael Arlington thinks Twitter can now be thought of as a search engine.
John Robinson thinks Twitter is well worth it:

The timesuck of Web surfing has drastically decreased. The serendipity of discovering interesting sites and ideas and opinions has dramatically increased. And befriending people near and far has been an unexpected blessing. (John Robinson)

And just to give a contrary view, Pear Analytics analysed US Twitter traffic and concluded:

Twitter is pointless babble, spam and self promotion.

Which reminds us all that there is a whole world out there, outside of Twitter. According to Kathy from Creating Passionate Users (in December 2006!):

…email, IMs, social networking, and blogs are nothing compared to the thing that may finally cause time as we know it to cease. I'm talking, of course, about Twitter.

Twitter can be a massive time black hole, so don't forget to get some value from your offline life also.