I have no problems with how people chose to use Twitter. I think that certain people chose to “clean up their account” so they look like a Twitter celebrity. Yes I know this may sound silly but come on, you know it’s true! Maybe follow a couple hundred people compared to the multiple thousands that follow them back. Over time, that number will start to dwindle. Most people want reciprocity on Twitter (it is after all social media) and when they see that they were “used”, they unfollow the people back.

I know what you may be thinking; I only follow people who follow back. Not true at all. There are quite a few key people, corporations, non-profits, etc that I will always follow who do not follow everyone back however when you are someone who obviously games the system to look like a Twitter celebrity and delivers no useful content, then what’s the point? This is SOCIAL media, after all.

I recently needed to hire a vendor for an event and had it down to two possible choices. I made initial contact with both via Twitter. The first vendor returned my tweet within the hour and had a meeting scheduled with me. The second vendor, not only did not make contact with me but he was an avid Mafia Wars player who flooded his Twitter stream with his latest conquests. I had made initial contact with both vendors about three weeks ago and to this day and never heard back from the second vendor. However he was still flooding my Twitter stream very diligently with his Mafia Wars victories. So you might ask, who got my business? I think you know the answer.

If you are in business and are using your Twitter account for business purposes, playing Mafia Wars and ignoring potential clients may cost you business. It did in this case. For those of thinking that it’s no big deal because it’s only Twitter, it is a VERY BIG deal when you are using your Twitter account to advertise your business. You never know when a potential client will make professional contact via Twitter. Using your business account to flood your network with Mafia Wars or other internet games not only looks unprofessional and makes you lose your credibility but it also can lose you potential clients. Lesson learned; save Mafia Wars for your personal account or else it just might cost you.

If you want to have a greater presence or voice, then having an audience is essential; ideally the bigger the better. Whether you are promoting yourself or your business, what good is having an audience if it’s only made up of five people? For businesses, it makes sense for them to follow everyone back. I know that certain follows can turn out to be spam but those can be easily weeded out. Every follow represents another opportunity for your voice to be heard or perhaps more business for your company. In this day and age, that is most certainly a good thing.

Communication has certainly come a long way, especially in the digital world. More opportunities are now possible due to these advancements in communication. Maybe taking advantage of these advancements is worth considering.

Feel free to follow me on Twitter here. I am happy to have you be a part of my social network.

The most attractive feature of social media is that you can reach large audiences fairly inexpensively, in fact free in many cases. Social media is extremely popular with organizations and companies because they can advertise and market their brands fairly inexpensively or free with the goal of getting returns on their investment (ROI). Social media requires very little to no financial investment. Social media and marketing go hand in hand by providing free (or very inexpensive) promotion of goods and services.

The three most popular social media websites are Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. All free of charge. Fan pages on Facebook are extremely popular to promote brands as is Twitter. Many companies take full advantage of these sites and use it extremely effectively, while others are still struggling to figure it all out. For many businesses, social media is an important line of communication with their customers/clients as it takes a newer approach to marketing. In the future I will write about how businesses use it effectively and those who can alienate potential customers/clients by ineffectively utilizing it.

On a purely social aspect, social media is extremely popular to keep in touch with friends and family by publishing photos and status updates. Social media is also a powerful networking tool allowing people to connect with others in their field as well as aid them in the job search. LinkedIn is a powerful social networking tool providing these benefits as well. I remember when I was in college; email and instant messaging were the primary means to keeping in touch in the digital world, now college students have embraced Twitter and Facebook to stay in close contact with friends and family.

The explosion in social media over the past few years has opened up new career possibilities due to the need in virtually every industry. If you are a business not embracing social media, you are missing out on the benefits it can provide to you and your customers. The benefits consist of free advertising and a front-line of communication to you and your customers.

Social media is definitely not a fad and is only going to keep growing from here. For anyone who has not embraced, it either on the professional or social level, I highly recommend in doing so. It opens up limitless possibilities both socially and professionally.

Twitter is a social media platform that has exploded in the last couple years. It even has a language of its own that took me a while to figure out and eventually master. The way it works is you, the author sends out these tweets which are displayed on your profile page. They go out into the public timeline as well (unless you have chosen to protect your updates and restrict them to only your friends). People can choose to subscribe to your tweets. They are known as your followers. You can also subscribe to their tweets by following them. Your profile page will display your followers as well as the people who you follow. Your page will also be filled with the timeline/tweets of those who you have chosen to follow. Does this seem confusing? Well it gets even more confusing with the introduction of other words such as the “retweet.” A retweet (abbreviated RT in a tweet) is when you repeat another person’s tweet. You will usually retweet when you come across a tweet from an individual whom you find interesting or important enough to share with your followers. A retweet basically says you like what someone has to say and feel it’s worth sharing with your group of followers.

Some of my friends who I convinced to try twitter either said they thought it was boring or were unimpressed by it. I happen to be a self-proclaimed twitter addict. I guess it all depends on how you use Twitter. You pretty much get out of it what you put into it. There are people who use Twitter to market their business, products, or themselves. Others use it as strictly a social tool to stay in contact with friends or make new friends and others will use it to stay on top of the latest trends on just about anything out there. You can post links to things you find interesting and even post pictures for others to see. The Twitter community is a very large and broad one. It contains the average people, like you and I, celebrities, politicians, businesses, etc. I happen to believe that having a broad range of people you follow makes Twitter more interesting.  I happen to have a large group of people I follow from all different walks of life. Some are personal friends; others are people across the world in my field (event/meeting planning and consulting), major corporations, local businesses, musicians, people in technology, and many others. This makes for a very diverse and interesting timeline for me.

I encourage anyone who has never tried Twitter to at least give it a try. After all, it does not cost anything. You may be surprised to find out how much you will like it and how addicting it can be, well it is for me anyway! A good place to find is people is a directory I like to use called WeFollow; www.wefollow.com. You can even list yourself in that directory to find other people with similar interests to yours and be found by them. And of course, you can always follow me, www.twitter.com/OC_Monica .

I hope this crash course on Twitter and how it works has answered some of the questions that have come up. Do give it a try! Hope to see you all out in the “Twitterverse.”

One of my other interests is philanthropy. One of my main interests is cancer research. This is something that has touched everyone’s lives in some form or another, some more than others. One of the ways to get involved in a cause through social media is through www.socialvibe.com. On the right hand side of my blog, you will find my cause, Stand Up To Cancer. Stand Up To Cancer is a relatively new movement and focuses on attacking cancer through research and scientific breakthroughs. I invite you to learn more about this cause by clicking on the link on the right.

I welcome all comments. Feel free to connect with me on Twitter as well.

I look forward to sharing (and also learning from you) my experiences and knowledge with you!