I’ve been on Twitter since December 31, 2008, and I’m still making up my mind about it.
It’s a no brainer to get thousands of followers and in turn, it’s even easier to follow thousands of people, but I’m still mulling over which specific activities are worth the effort.
Allegedly some businesses are making money hand over fist through Twitter. Allegedly some consumers are consumed with finding out via Twitter when the local bakery is serving a fresh batch of donuts and then racing right over.
I, on the other hand, seldom find anything I would spend money for on Twitter because the messages are too brief and dull to capture my interest. (Years on the Internet have immunized me against such allegedly no-fail words as “free” or “make money while you sleep.”)
Still, I have found one way to use Twitter that can be a source of endless fascination: evaluating internet marketing experts based on their Twitter streams.
Twitter’s beauty is in its transparency. Internet marketers can boast all they want about successes we can’t actually see, but everything they do on Twitter is out in the open for us to evaluate (with the exception of direct messages).
So when a marketer issues content on his social networking expertise and “thought leadership,” it’s great fun to go to Twitter and see how that part of his social networking has been functioning.
On the positive column I put Marcia Yudkin at @MarciasMantras. Her presence is modest seeing how she follows no one and never retweets. Still, every tweet provides valuable advice succinctly.
Now for some other so-called experts who preach the use of social networking:
One is a PhD who is praised in her husband’s email marketing campaigns as a Twitter expert. Her last tweet was on September 12. She posted three tweets in September and one in August.
One has a Twitter icon on his home page. Click on the icon and it takes you to his Facebook page. (Yes, you read that right. Facebook.)
One used to offer an info product to get you started on Twitter. To date he has issued 46 tweets and his account appears to be stagnant (or closed?).
What about my own Twittering?
So far I’ve used my account mainly to attract readers to my own blog posts but my Twitter efforts could be improved if I gave this tool higher priority. Appropriately, I don’t claim to be an expert.
Check out my tweets at @DianaSchneidman. If you’d like me to read your tweets and respond to them, let me know by commenting on this article or privately in an email to me that you are following me and I’ll actually go back and respond to your account. Honest!
Now for your post-article dessert, please enjoy The Onion’s report from e-mom Gloria Bianco’s on how to use Twitter “to shamelessly interfere with the lives of your children.”
Originally posted 11-21-11