Are You a Twitter Newbie?

While there are over 17 million active Twitter users in the U.S., that represents only about 7% of the U.S. population.  Add to that Facebook's usage which now has over 41% of Americans engaged in social networking on some level.  (Source:  2010 Edison Research/Arbitron Internet & Multimedia Study).  But social media continues to be on the rise.  Why?  Because it's inexpensive technology that continues to be more and more accessible.  And social media has an unbelievable reach.   In a recent article about the Future of Social Networking, Andrew Nathan says,

"By 2015...expect to see more mobile applications and virtual networking a stronger part of our everyday social networking experience."

From what I can tell most people who are active on Facebook but haven't yet made it onto Twitter are interested and even eager to try it out, but don't know where to start.  I recently came across a simple and straightforward tutorial that addresses just that.   It walks you through the simple steps of setting up an account which is all most people want to know in the beginning.

But before getting to the tutorial, let's start at the very beginning...which is a very good place to start...and revisit just exactly what Twitter is and how you might use it in your daily life.   According to the Twitter website the social media tool is defined as:

Twitter is a real-time information network powered by people all around the world that lets you share and discover what’s happening now..

The operative phrases here are "real-time", "people around the world", "share" and "discover".    Similar to, but better than, other social networking sites Twitter provides us with a means to connect with a multitude of people and organizations who:

• share the same interests on some level


• provide information that we find interesting and valuable


• find what we have to share is interesting and valuable

This vast and viral network helps us discover more about our world - how we add to it and how we benefit from it - then we could ever discover offline or via email.   It also functions quite well as a search engine and a good one too!  Michael Arrington of Tech Crunch explores just how valuable Twitter has become as a search engine. He says, "People searching for news. Brands searching for feedback. That’s valuable stuff."   And that value will continue to grow as social media usage grows.

A final quick note regarding the numbers.  It's common for users who are new to Twitter and other social media applications like Facebook or LinkedIn to be caught up with growing their friend/follower base. "Look how many friends and followers I have!"   But, truly, it's not about the numbers, it's about collaboration.  Collaboration and social media are most commonly used in relation to business and marketing online, but it's really what we are all doing out there.  We are searching, sharing and seeking a greater knowledge base than what we have today.   For each of us this will look different and that's the beauty of it.  People can collaborate in ways they never have been able to before on subjects like:

• how I handle curfew for an 18 year old living at home


• how should I invest my money over the next six months


• tips on taxes


• buying a house


• where to take the family for Mother's Day brunch

There is no end to what you can discover.  So go ahead and get started!  Good luck!  Here's that tutorial I referred to at the beginning of this blog.  Hope it helps!


(Thank you to Brian at homebasedblogging.com for this quick and easy Twitter startup tool.)