LocationsYesterday afternoon, I drove across the bridge to have lunch with a friend. The conversation (as it inevitably does) turned to Twitter. This friend is a technical guy, responsible for keeping infrastructure current, secure, and reliable. He’s not a marketer, he’s not in sales, and he doesn’t do most of his socializing online. So I was hardly surprised to hear, “I’m not a ‘twitterer’” and “it seems like such a broad audience – when we’re trying to reach people, we’re trying to reach really specific contacts.”
I’ve had this conversation once or twice (or twelve times) before, so I didn’t argue, I just explained: “Twitter—my personal account—is often the first thing I check in the morning and the last thing I look at before I go to bed. It lets me know what people are talking about and helps me find the stuff I really don’t want to miss.”
“So…Twitter is for knowing when your friends’ birthdays are and what they’re doing, right?”
“Well, let’s see: Kristina Halvorson, a business owner I really admire, tweets fantastic links about web content. My friends tweet when they try a new restaurant they love. I used Phinneywood’s Twitter feed to stay informed when there was a string of fires in Greenwood. If my website goes down, MediaTemple’s Twitter account is the first place I check to find out if there’s a widespread incident.”
I wish I had a video of what happened then: His whole expression changed, he leaned back in his chair, he said: “Oh, I could use that,” and launched into an explanation of how hard it is to communicate with all his users when there’s latency or maintenance or a need to let them know in advance when there might be an issue.
It was one of those breakthrough moments. A few specific examples turned “I don’t get it” into “I could use that.” It might be a while before he joins Twitter or finds a place for social media in his work, but it sure was fun to watch it click that social media can be as practical as it is shiny, as useful as it is new.
Breakthrough moment… wish I could say I’ve had those with friends and family over this topic. I think it’s really hard to get people to think outside of what they’ve already heard and read about Twitter. You have described its use perfectly.
Like you, I use it to stay informed. If I’m following say, @mashable, I can get real-time news on all things Social Media. With a 140 character limit, news and information has become ever more digestible for people. Sure, you can’t squeeze in a whole story in 140 characters, but you can “tweet” the headline and then provide a link to the actual article.
Nice post! I need to have some of these moments myself!