Yesterday I found myself in quite a heavy debate when a friend stated that those on twitter were lost in a fantasy world, they needed to start living in the real world!
Two years ago, Twitter was nothing but a giant puzzle to me. I tried but just couldn’t get into the whole thing of tweeting, I failed miserably!
Image via Wikipedia
Believe it or not despite having an active twitter account with a twitter grade of 98, I’ve only been doing this tweeting malarky actively for around a year!
Sitting with a coffee in one hand and my iPhone in the other I scroll through my twitter timeline, I’m presented with hundreds of tweets from people (yes, real people) from all over the world! Overtime I’ve created a collection of followers, many I follow back, all with something to say and share with their fellow tweeters. The whole experience is customised the way I want it! You build this close-knit homogenous group of like-minded people, sometimes separating them into lists of smaller groups enabling you to create different groups for each and every one of your particular interests, whether that’s competition tweeters, news tweeters or fellow bloggers like myself!
So, how comes when I explained this to my friend she still failed to understand or even agree to disagree?
Well, apart from her being as stubborn as old boots, she isn’t exactly internet savvy either! For this reason alone I judged her mystification to be based purely on ignorance rather than malice.
Though I believe the above to be true, I do acknowledge the fact that this friend was also referring to how much time I spend tweeting! With this I asked myself…
“Do I spend too much time on twitter?”
Now, I cannot deny that there have been a few occasions where I have lost track of time as my timeline fills itself with more and more interesting content! Yes, I have found that every now and then the iPhone has somehow got stuck to my hand, I’m under no illusions that it hasn’t, yes I know this to be true! OK, I could have been spending this time doing the more productive things that life requires, such as cleaning the house (what fun). Yet, it safe to say that twitter has never stopped me from living!
Image via CrunchBase
What’s more, I feel much good has come from the land of twitter, take the London Riot Cleanup as a perfect example! I myself assembled a team of local people to help me clean up Lewisham! This team was assembled in no more than a few hours with the power of a hash tag. This was seen as a positive thing right! Those people who Re- Tweeted my tweets for help were very real, and living very much in the real world! Those people who set out to help me that summer’s morning were again very real people, living in a very real & sometime crawl world! The revolution of a hash tag also brought with it positive media attention, not only was I interview by Gabby for the breakfast show on BBC radio (after she see my tweet I must add)! But I was also met by a host of BBC news reporters who followed us around all day and then shared the cleanup with the rest of the UK via a 6 O’Clock news report! Surely this is a positive thing, one created with the help of twitter?
Twitter holds the technology to send news fast, it enables you to gain support for charities and campaigns, once of great significance, after all, where else can you get a message around the world in a matter of seconds?
Image via Wikipedia
Anyone and everyone can be a part of twitter, making it what they want it to be! Social, business, a mix of both… that’s the point, It doesn’t matter because it’s your creation.
You will find everyone from celebs, charity campaigners, mummy bloggers to the average Joe, all tweeting about something or another, reaching out and becoming an influence in their own right. It’s a place these groups of everyday people are able to come together and complement one another despite their way of life.
Twitter is real… very real, it’s a place made up of units upon units of millions of real people all with a message for the world, something they want you to know… its follower! Whether that’s the fact they are sat on the train next to the most annoying person ever to grace the planet, or whether they just experienced the very first tremor of China’s massive quake… they just wanted you to know all the same!
Like anything else… drink, sex or drugs, you only find yourself lost in a land called twitter if it isn’t used the correct way… in moderation!
Yes, I like twitter (a lot, a lot, a lot…) Do I find myself tweeting on a daily basis? Umm… Yes! Do I check my mentions daily? Umm… Yes! Does it stop me from being the person I am, a mother with a healthy relationship with her children? Umm… No! Does it stop me from looking after myself and my children? Umm… No!
So… am I lost in a land called twitter?
I don’t think so, and for those who do… your just a little bit bonkers!
One that doesn’t understand the significance of something so powerful will of course fail to see its purpose and how much of a reality it really is!
Related articles
- Ecademy member makes worlds top 100 tweeters list on Leadership [Mike Morrison] (ecademy.com)
- Oxford Study Explores Tweeter Reach & Influence (marketingland.com)
- Getting to know Twitter language (tfollowers.com)
- 12 Steps to Creating a Successful Twitter Chat (socialtimes.com)
- How to Be An Awesome Tweeter (nerdist.com)
- Top 10 Tips to Tweet your way to 1000’s of Followers (socialmaximizer.com)
- MP Hilary Benn joins Twitter (southleedslife.wordpress.com)
- How to Get Useful Business Information Out of Twitter: Hashtags for Social Media Research (uber.la)
Mummy Of Many Talents 
I too joined up on twitter a couple of years ago but didn’t understand, I completely forgot about my twitter account until recently. I have been on twitter probably on a daily basis now for the past few weeks and I love it. I have met some lovely people, read some great blogs, found some new innovative companies to buy from and I get to find out about local things going on in my area.
I am a bit lost on there as to what a hashtag is but I’m learning and enjoying doing so.
Bless yer 😉 I’ve not long worked out the hashtag business myself (prob only last Aug) if I’m honest. Its that little hashtag a the end of certain words, people do it because when using the same hashtag u end up with everybody chatting about the same topic. Ps do hope u enjoyed the Skating? We did.xx