OK, networking is supposed to be about interpersonal communication. But with the new social media tools (why don’t we call these what they are–new media tools?) at our disposal, we need to embrace them and realize that personal communication has to start somewhere.
Given that, I found these five reasons to use Twitter in a commentary in today’s “Points” section of the Dallas Morning News. In David Carr’s piece I found some nuggets we need to consider because Twitter–
- Can be serious. Get over the predictable posts of “I’m tired” and “I’m having coffee” and realize that in those posts is a guide to what people are really doing. Serious posters pass on useful information in links.
- Is friction free. That is, you can release information and forget that others are out there listening. It comes back to you. For example, I tweeted a while back about a friend’s son’s negative experience on a university tour–got a response from the institution in minutes. Since it isn’t “mutual” (like Facebook) you never know who is listening or talking. Free your brand into this universe.
- Has a real value of being a listening post of a “wired collective voice.” Really. Good networkers know ’tis better to listen than to talk.
- Can be overwhelming, but it is a “river of rushing data” that we can dip into. Like scanning the daily newspaper or watching headline news–you get the jist of things in a few minutes. Didn’t Twitter surpass the wire services recently in some way?
- Is best used carefully and sparingly, not unlike any other media you have in your plan or day. To quote Clay Shirky, Twitter is “lightweight, endlessly useful and gets better as more people use it.” Wouldn’t you want to find a way to tap into that?
Consider the tool and its many uses careful. But consider the tool.
Relentless
Read the original story here http://tinyurl.com/yldt9bq. Thanks to the Dallas Morning News and David Carr of the New York Times.
