So, Twitter is full of inane babble, right? Well, perhaps not. It can also be a source of inspiration, insight and learning if you want it to be. Here’s six things I think we can learn from using Twitter:
1. Perception is Contagious. The people you surround yourself with affect your experience and perspectives. Your experience on Twitter is largely determined by the people that you follow – if you follow boring, prejudiced or self-absorbed people on Twitter, you’re probably not going to have a very enjoyable experience of it. However, if you following curious, interesting and insightful people, you’re likely to be surprised and delighted regularly.
2. It’s not all about you. Being selfish and cagey is a sure way to be ignored. The more interested you are in others, the more interested they’re likely to be in you. The most popular people on Twitter engage and respond to others, share the ideas of others, acknowledge others, and add value with their own ideas too.
3. Sharing is joyful. There’s a certain delight that comes from sharing an idea that you care about publicly. This is compounded for every person that acknowledges your idea and passes it along (in the form of “Retweets” usually). In the same vein, it’s amazing how willing people are to help out with ideas or resources in response to questions you might pose on Twitter (of course, in this case you’d probably need to have some active followers for this to work).
4. Everyone has a story. One of the most remarkable things about Twitter is the abundance of experiences and perspectives that people have. Just browsing what people are writing about at any given time, or around any given topic is often humbling and enlightening. For example, I loved sharing the experience of fans around South Africa of the World Cup opening ceremony and game – people in the stadium, at fanparks, at home alone (dancing!), or with family and friends.
5. A little humour goes a long way. An informal survey I conducted on Twitter revealed that the most popular tweets for South Africans are humorous one-liners. In response to even the most tense debate, helping people laugh is sure to win you friends and followers.
6. Mean what you say. Insincere expression of feelings – whether good or bad can come back in surprising ways. People have lost jobs, business contracts, friends and followers from saying things they didn’t mean on Twitter. I think this stems from a sense that complaining is a good way to build sympathy – it works if you’ve had a real experience but can really backfire if you’re making it up. Just because you’re saying it online, it doesn’t mean there aren’t real people or real consequences on the receiving end. On the other hand, flat praise or outright lies tend to be exposed online, and people tend not to follow those who they don’t trust.
Lastly, I’d say that ultimately Twitter is pretty meaningless if you’re only using it to accumulate followers. The real value of it is in the relationships you develop and the ways in which you can get to know people, share experiences and resolve problems.
That is great, especially like the first point you make of perception being contagious.
yes, i agree. i get lots of info, support and laughs from twitter every day. it’s like one big, rowdy party with opinionated and informed friends. including the group arguing heatedly at the table, and the drunk throwing up in the corner…
So true. Twitter is social by nature and this means you need to treat it just like you would deal with your friends. I find it teaches me a lot and connects me to people that I would have probably never met had it not been for twitter.
Great post!
Jackie, did you *have* to mention me in the corner?
Dave, nice posting and all true.
Great points Dave. I have met people from twitter that I would have never come across elsewhere. Utilise the balance between conversation and sharing relevant content and you get a perfect place to mingle online (following your 6 points of course). Looking forward to the day our paths cross and I think it would be great for you to do a related post in the future on twitter etiquette. Enjoy the weekend of sporting mayhem! @AdsMitchell
Thanks for the kind words in the comments. I have got to know such brilliant people through Twitter. It’s reinforced an understanding that digital doesn’t replace “real” relationships, it enables them in many ways.
“Perception is Contagious”, this is so very true! I’ve spent hours managing who I follow and finding new people to follow that inspire and interest me.
I’m so tired of people who push their own services/products constantly. What I did was create a whole seperate account for iMod, so if you’re interested in my blog, you follow that one, if you’re interested in me, then you follow my personal one. This strategy has proven quite successful.
I’m also really tired about people who constantly go on and on about what they have, what they drive, and so forth, there’s nothing more annoying and boring – I really don’t care if you’re “Watching the Camps Bay sunset, FROM MY MASERATI”.
Nice one Dave
That is so true digital can never replace offline interaction but it can build and establish relationships.
@Chris I think with iMod as a media entity, it’s a good idea to separate the two – though you as an online personality are now synonymous with it.
I find the flaunting online rather entertaining, actually – though I wouldn’t want to be friends with people who’s self-worth is defined by what they own (*yawn*)
Ye, tricky to seperate the two, but really didn’t want to spam every follower with every blog post I did as a lot of the posts are left field and could even be offensive to some
Yar, self worth through what they own *yawn x 2*
Twitter can be a very powerful marketing tool, you have made very valid points – great advice for anyone new as well as current Twitter users, Twitter is one of the best networking tools around
I’m with Chris in the Perception is Contagious fan camp. Who we follow completely slants our perception on social media as a whole.
THe realworld corollary is a trash newspaper landing on your desk every morning column inches stuffed with fluff, whining, carnage, celebrities misbehaving, and reading it just because it’s there.
This is the miracle of our age: we can choose what news we want delivered to our feeds. Twitter is just a sexy RSS platform for delivering news.
Die Son or Intelligent Life – we choose. Hooray.
Max, *what* as astute summation. Great analogy. Going to quote you!