Twitter is losing momentum with the general population. 90% of people say "Why would I care what someone is having for breakfast?" If you are tweeting that, then you do not get it anyway.
I am meeting and interacting with complete strangers more on Twitter than all of the other Social Media platforms combined. Many of my new connections this past month are because of Twitter.
A tweet up is basically a networking event for people of Twitter. Many folks have used Twitter to help in getting attendance at other networking events. The reason for this is the foundation of interactivity and the ease of sharing information.
You have to go back to the days of word of mouth. The way gossip was shared. It required an personal meeting or a phone call. With the Internet, it is now the "word of mouse". Things can spread like wildfire in seconds.
If you have 100 friends; 10 years ago it would take time to talk to each one of them and keep them in the loop, but now with status updates you can type 140 characters and push send and you can tell it to 100, 1000 or 100,000 people!
That is just where the power begins. The next step is where the power extends. It is even easier for your network to push that to their networks. If you can get to that third ring, you can hit hundreds of thousand or even millions of people. It as easy as a click of a mouse. If it required a lot of effort, it would not happen. If you had to mail out that same note to everyone… it would not happen. Lets face it, if your computer slows and takes 10 seconds to load, it probably will not happen.
You couple that with how easy it is to interact with people inside or outside your network. It is not only acceptable it is encouraged. This is a great way to meet new people.
So take my advice, get out there, start following people, listen to the conversations and then stick your head in and get in the conversation.
Also, it appears a virus is spreading around Twitterville. You ask “how is that possible?” Using old tried’n’true tricks.
– Someone hacks your twitter account and changes the password, preventing you from using it.
– They (a bot) starts Twitting from your account (similar to viruses sending email from your Outlook).
– Since your followers trust you, they click on the link you tweeted, which sends them to a real-enough looking site then
a) the malicious website tries to download a virus (your AV should catch this), or
b) your asked to give your credit card number (after all, a friend pointed you to the site), or
c) they ask for your twitter acct/password to enable some cool new feature. Your mileage may vary.
This is typical social viruses which we have seen or heard of before. Just remain diligent.
Best,
Rick Stomphorst
Linkedin.com/in/RStomphorst
Twitter.com/StompR
“Building structure around ambiguity.”