What is Twitter?

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Believe it or not was the third most Googled question by New Zealanders in 2011.

I hope this is a great indicator to show that although Twitter holds a large influence over people in New Zealand, it’s still a topic people do not know much about, so I hope I can give you some insight if you too, are in that boat, wondering ‘What in the world is Twitter?’.

You remember when the internet first appeared? Everyone were enthralled by this new phenomenon. Then websites came in, and many businesses started getting one to build an online presence. A little while later, blogs became popular, as you would have seen from movies such as ‘Julie and Julia’, everyone seemed to be jumping on board to not miss the opportunity of updating the world about their weekly, and even daily lives. And then came Twitter. An opportunity for people to update others about their life on a minute-to-minute basis.

When Twitter first came out, many were wondering how on Earth they were going to update the world about their life in 140 characters or less – surely, the average person thinks quicker than that! Twitter first and foremost drove people to see what celebrities were doing. Busy as they are, famous people from actors to producers to musicians found the time in their schedule to keep their fans updated about their life. Suddenly, Twitter became more meaningful than Women’s Gossip Magazines, because people could go straight to the source without relying on paparazzi or journalists to report the events of celebrity living.

After this, journalists, business people and almost every other demographic hooked onto this new way of updating what they were doing, as well as to find out what people of interest to them were doing on a regular basis. We’ve seen the results of Twitter get carried into the media – Twitter BECAME the media – people could find out about celebrity break ups and hook ups, protests, and other important and interesting news, before the journalists had time to find out and report on it.

Even politicians now, when trying to get public awareness about their campaign or new law they’re supporting, don’t need to rely on picky journalists to take their ideas out to the public – the public can just find out all the information online!

Twitter became a reflection on the fast paced world we live in, that young people are so used to – information overload, with news coming out as it happens.

It’s given people a way to communicate quickly and efficiently without going into detail with one another, and with the rest of the world.

Twitter works in a reciprocal manner: once you set up an account, you start looking for people of interest to you to ‘follow’. Through interesting updates, you will also get ‘followers’ who find your updates interesting. If you’re stuck on how to fit your life into 140 characters, you can always post a link to your blog, or another webpage that relates to your update, which gets shortened, where people can read further.

Like I said before, Twitter is great for finding out news online. The other value of Twitter is that you can see the trends going on around the world – the keywords or events people are talking about right now. This can prove to be beneficial if you’re in business so you can find a way to find out what your target market is interested in. The Twitter search option also means people can search for what’s of interest to them. Remember how you have your favourite section in the newspaper you always turn to first before reading anything else? You can search for your sports team, event, or keyword to find out what’s happening and what people are saying about it.

Can you see some ways of how you may be able to use Twitter to your advantage? Whether you’re in business to find out what people are saying about your product or service, or what they think of your industry, or whether you want to find out news and trends around the world, Twitter has you covered.

If you want help with setting up Twitter, or extra advice about what Twitter can do for you, let me know!

What have your experiences with Twitter been?