Still holding back on tweeting? Why, exactly? Here are answers to three of the most common reasons I hear from people who are resistant to joining Twitter and my answers to debunk them.
1. I don’t have any time
Twitter is by far the simplest social network that takes the least of your precious time. Are you really saying you don’t have time to send a 140-character message- from your phone, no less? Think of how much time you spend on other activities on your mobile device throughout the day- staring at the screen waiting for a text message to arrive, playing Bick Breaker or Angry Birds, or scrolling through Facebook. You obviously do have plenty of time; you’re just using this as an excuse.
2. I don’t have anything interesting to say
Here’s the first step to using Twitter: don’t worry about tweeting yourself. That’s right, no need to get confused about handles and hash-tags (and potentially make a Weiner-like mistake). Just follow and listen. Take 10 minutes and follow 20 people. Start with people who you like or admirer: your family and friends, celebrities, sports stars, entertainers and politicians. Do this every day for a few days and pretty soon you’ll be following a hundred or so people. Now just listen to what they’re talking about. The links they’re sharing and the people they’re retweeting. Pretty soon you’re going to see something that you want to comment on, or retweet and once that happens, you’re in- and you’ll never look back. Pretty soon you’ll have no problem tweeting- and finding things that are interesting to say.
3. I don’t want to know what other people are eating for breakfast
This comes up a lot from people who have never tweeted before. For some reason, they have this strange belief that the Twitter-verse is a big void where hundreds of thousands of people are sending messages about what they eat for breakfast, or other miscellaneous details about their life. Sure, there’s some of this. (And there’s even an app called Tweet What You Eat- check it out!)- but this is not- I repeat not- how Twitter is primarily used. Twitter is a constant stream of conversation. Just as you might discuss what you ate for breakfast if you were first sitting down to talk with someone in person, sometimes you bring this up in your online conversation. But it is by no means the primary reason why you’re talking or even what you take away from the conversation. By the way, if someone keeps tweeting about something that you’re not interested in, simply unfollow them. It’s really easy.
Convinced yet? Ready to give it a try? What other questions are holding you back?
Chris Golden is the Executive Director and Co-Founder of myImpact.org- an online platform and Twitter based application for volunteers to record, share and track their impact. Follow Chris on Twitter @ChrisGolden. He’s served for two years as official Twitter correspondent for the National Conference on Citizenship, speaks frequently on social media to student, young leader and non-profit audiences and was invited to NASA Tweetups at the Kennedy Space Center for the STS-133 and STS-135 launches.
Twitter 101: Still Holding Back on Tweeting?
By Chris Golden · June 28th, 2011 · Student Life · Comments
28 June
Still holding back on tweeting? Why, exactly? Here are answers to three of the most common reasons I hear from people who are resistant to joining Twitter and my answers to debunk them.
1. I don’t have any time
Twitter is by far the simplest social network that takes the least of your precious time. Are you really saying you don’t have time to send a 140-character message- from your phone, no less? Think of how much time you spend on other activities on your mobile device throughout the day- staring at the screen waiting for a text message to arrive, playing Bick Breaker or Angry Birds, or scrolling through Facebook. You obviously do have plenty of time; you’re just using this as an excuse.
2. I don’t have anything interesting to say
Here’s the first step to using Twitter: don’t worry about tweeting yourself. That’s right, no need to get confused about handles and hash-tags (and potentially make a Weiner-like mistake). Just follow and listen. Take 10 minutes and follow 20 people. Start with people who you like or admirer: your family and friends, celebrities, sports stars, entertainers and politicians. Do this every day for a few days and pretty soon you’ll be following a hundred or so people. Now just listen to what they’re talking about. The links they’re sharing and the people they’re retweeting. Pretty soon you’re going to see something that you want to comment on, or retweet and once that happens, you’re in- and you’ll never look back. Pretty soon you’ll have no problem tweeting- and finding things that are interesting to say.
3. I don’t want to know what other people are eating for breakfast
This comes up a lot from people who have never tweeted before. For some reason, they have this strange belief that the Twitter-verse is a big void where hundreds of thousands of people are sending messages about what they eat for breakfast, or other miscellaneous details about their life. Sure, there’s some of this. (And there’s even an app called Tweet What You Eat- check it out!)- but this is not- I repeat not- how Twitter is primarily used. Twitter is a constant stream of conversation. Just as you might discuss what you ate for breakfast if you were first sitting down to talk with someone in person, sometimes you bring this up in your online conversation. But it is by no means the primary reason why you’re talking or even what you take away from the conversation. By the way, if someone keeps tweeting about something that you’re not interested in, simply unfollow them. It’s really easy.
Convinced yet? Ready to give it a try? What other questions are holding you back?
Chris Golden is the Executive Director and Co-Founder of myImpact.org- an online platform and Twitter based application for volunteers to record, share and track their impact. Follow Chris on Twitter @ChrisGolden. He’s served for two years as official Twitter correspondent for the National Conference on Citizenship, speaks frequently on social media to student, young leader and non-profit audiences and was invited to NASA Tweetups at the Kennedy Space Center for the STS-133 and STS-135 launches.