Last week I attended a webinar on "Harnessing the Power of Twitter for Professional Networking" hosted by the Association for Heathcare Documentation Integrity. The speaker was Jay Vance, a technology products specialist from Superior Global Solutions, Inc.
I finally understand why people are so into Twitter.
I have had a Twitter account for some time now, but I never really have anything to tweet about; I could never find anything much to say that was interesting. I am not into celebrity news. I do not think my tweeting about current events would be all that pertinent because I'm just not that important or current. I had thought it would be useful for communication between Mr. Thorns and myself, but he is totally not into any newfangled techie things and flat out refused to participate. Then, all that was left was the fact that I was enjoying a peanut-butter-and-banana sandwich. Frankly, I do not much think the world cares (though I'm not beyond posting that on my FB status) so the Twitter account has sat. And sat. And sat.
Now, I've learned that there are all sorts of tools on Twitter. You can find networks to interact with and locate people with shared interests, ideas, or professional skills. You can search by hash tags, insert hash tags into conversations, have private or public conversations, easily follow people, and be followed. You can sort the people you follow into useful lists, and you can quickly and easily process information in little 'tweets' following leads that are of particular interest to you. Also of interest is the fact that tweets are in real time therefore if you need information instantly, with the right support network on Twitter, you can quickly and easily accomplish this.
I also learned that you can sign up for client applications which will manage your Twitter, and other social networking, through a program you download onto your computer. Two big client applications are TweetDeck and HootSuite. I cannot comment on either one authoritatively as I have not had time to investigate. When I do, I will report back. If anyone has any comments I would love to hear your thoughts on either of those client apps. Of note, the client apps have built in tool to shorten links, such as TinyURL does now, this saves you a step.
Now, another thing on my To-Do list for this summer is researching client apps to put Twitter to good use. How do you use Twitter? Do you have any good tips?
6 comments:
I can't wait to learn more!!
I dropped Twitter & Facebook; takes away from my time and gathers only names and faces without content. Did not help my blog hits, either. People add thousands of names to their Following lists, and I ask, how xould they possibly read them? they don't.
To each his own! I sew and write; need more time for these. God Bless!
Hi Adrienne,
FB and Twitter can really be a time vacuum if not careful. I like it to keep up with what people are doing, quickly and easily. Some of them are just acquaintances, people I've lost touch with over the years, and I'm glad for the updates. I do not know why people would expand their circles into the thousands. I have less than 150 on my FB, and I have some connection to them all.
As for Twitter, right now I'm looking to use it professionally. I'm studying to be a work-from-home MT due to my dh being out of work for a year now. There will instances where I will be on a time deadline and need a quick answer, at some strange hour of the night. I *think* Twitter will provide the ability to speak to other MTs, working odd hours as well, to get a quick answer. Therefore I felt it was worthwhile to explore. If not for that, my Twitter would sit, as it has been. It just isn't that important, and I'm just not that important either :).
I also like to sew, crochet, read and write. I originally started this blog to hone my writing skills. Look how times change!! Sadly, I hope to get back to more of that when life settles down in to the routines of the last 18 years, rather than the routines of the most recent 2.
Thanks for stopping by, Adrienne, I hope you come by again!
~Lily
Like you, I've only started using my (years old) twitter account very recently. I used it for #bloggiesta, to see what was going on.
Also, now that I have linked up with other book bloggers, it's a way to find out what they've been doing, and you can post links (which I shorten with bit.ly) to your recent blog posts. This really helps getting more hits on the blog! :-)
Thanks for stopping by leeswammes!
I hadn't quite figured out the hash tags for bloggiesta, so I missed out on that. Additionally I didn't figure out about bloggiesta until halfway through the weekend, but I'm working on my list for the next one! I'm going to figure out how to use Twitter in a meaningful-to-me way yet. It is such an interesting concept.
~Lily
I´m always on FB, but I know so little about Twitter... This post is great! Thanks. :)
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