Melon Corporate Blog

Twitter, Tools And Parties.

Posted on Jan 28, 2010

Twitter. You've heard of it. You know, vaguely, what it's about. You've grown tired of having people recommend you join the Tweeps and Tweet your Twavels.

You may even have created an account, sent out a few bursts of 140 character wit - and then wondered, "What's the point?"

If so, you make up about 44% (source: Burson-Marsteller) of the accounts on the social network microblog cosmos.

The question is, do you really know what Twitter is used for?

Don't feel ignorant if you haven't worked that out yet. The majority of new users expect Twitter to DO something straight out of the box. This expectation comes from experiences with Facebook, Friendster and other social networking sites that have an apparent purpose.

It is fair then to understand many peoples confusion when trying to comprehend why Twitter is useful and why so many journalists, celebrities, marketers, bands, stay-at-home mums, big corporations and small trades-people have joined the flock.

Isn't it just a status update? Well, yes. And no. To understand let's first look at Facebook. When you first sign up to Facebook, it directs you to connect with people you actually know. This is instantly familiar, even to users with no online experience other than internet banking and the occasional group email.

"Oh, Joe and Flo are on Facebook, it's recommending I be friends with them."

You have made a familiar connection that you know will be valuable to you - all as part of the introductory sign-up process. You are guided in how to use the site. It's easy. It has a very direct purpose - connect with friends, share photos.

Twitter has no apparent purpose other than to post 140 character snippets of (useful or useless) information.
That's because (and this is the epiphany) Twitter isn't a site - Twitter is a tool.

A tool is designed to be good at one thing, applied to many different situations...

Tweet Tweet

Twitter does this superbly. At face value Twitter allows you to post bite-sized messages of up to 140 characters out into the world. And in response you can read posts made by others.

Pretty easy concept so far right? For example, I can log on to Twitter and say, "Sitting on the Manly Ferry, writing a blog post", and I've contributed to the white noise that many people associate with Twitter.

Not very interesting.

But what if you logged on to Twitter and said;
"There's a guy giving out free donuts at the corner of Pitt and Hunter st."
Or if you're a band and tweeted, "Hey Guys, there's a secret gig tonight at the Cat Club, Balmain."
Or you're a company with retail goods, "Click here for our Twitter-only special of 30% off."
Or you're a recruiter, "I've JUST THIS SECOND found out that Google Sydney is hiring three new developers - check my site for more info."

Now that's valuable.

And it's real-time.

"So... you, er, tweet here often?"

So you see, Twitter is a constant stream of information - some of which will be interesting to you.

In a way it's like being at a party where you know only a few people and the rest are loosely affiliated by up to six degrees of separation (...less if you're Ashton Kutcher).

Most of the conversation will be pointless chatter, but then you might find yourself standing next to somebody eschewing the benefits of one type of Motorbike over another.

"Hey, motorbikes are cool", you think and so you pay attention to this guy. Then he is asked a question about the latest book he's reading and he begins to regale everyone on how wonderful Neal Stephenson is as an author.

You find this person really interesting and hang around him for the rest of the evening, maybe even involve yourself in some conversation.

If this were Twitter - you would now be following him and privy to anything else he says.

But if this were still just a hypothetical party - you would eventually go home. The conversations would stop and you wouldn't know what everyone was talking about anymore.

Twitter doesn't stop. It keeps going even when you're not there.

Twitter's biggest asset - unwavering permanency* - is also one of its biggest problems. And that's the sticking point for a lot of people.

*Except when you're greeted with the Fail Whale, Twitter's little page telling you the site is over capacity.

They feel that they've missed something or that every post is important and must be read. Don't fret about this. You can always use Twitter's search engine to find the latest tweets on the topics you are interested in.

It's ok not to be 'on' Twitter all the time. Remember that it's a form of media. A new way to have a conversation. Or just listen.

So go ahead - create an account. Or retrieve the log-in details for the account you gave up on. Just don't expect it to do what you're expecting it to do.

Spend some time with it. Search for interesting topics. Start following the people who are contributing valuable, interesting information. Do this and stick to it, because the more you follow, the more you will get out of it.

And when you're ready, type your first 140 characters. And don't look back, all you'll get is a sore neck.

Melon Corporate Blog

Twitter, Tools And Parties.

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