Twitter? Get Real! (Part 1)

Twitter seems to get no respect.

Which is too bad, but don't worry about it.

Facebook, Google and Yahoo! didn't get any respect when they were starting out either.

So when some of my radio station co-workers said to me last year that "Twitter was stupid" and "Twitter was dead", I simply ignored them and continued doing what I have been doing.

I have been on Twitter since the end of 2008, and I believe it is the single best investment I've made in the Social Media world besides my blogs.

I explain Twitter as "texting to the masses".

With Twitter I can talk privately with their direct messaging option.

Or I can say something that the whole world might see now that Google search engines are also looking at tweets.

There are very few absolutes with Twitter. Even the 140 character limitations can be overridden, but I don't recommend it.

I use Twitter to promote all of my blog posts with a direct link that followers can simply click on.
I use Twitter to promote what others are posting on Twitter with the Re-Tweet feature.
I use Twitter to make friends and connections.
I use Twitter to find out what is going on with almost any subject.
I use Twitter to share my sense of humor, my insight, my personality.

And as of January 2. 2011 at 2:30pm I had:
Tweeted 15,965 times
1304 Followers and am Following 813.

Yesterday, January 9, 2011 at 2:30pm, a week later I had:
Tweeted 16,185 times
1329 Followers and am Following 854

That's 220 Tweets/7 days= 31 Tweets daily average
Increase in Followers = 25 Increase in Following = 41

Sometimes I am amazed by this.

Because of the number of followers I have, I am among the top 2% of everyone on Twitter.

Over 95% of the people have less than 500 followers.

This week our Social Media Adventure will be focused on Twitter and how keeping it Real is essential.