Written by 
I’m often one of those “early adopters” of new systems. I was on Facebook for about 18 months before anyone else I knew, which made it rather pointless…
Similar story with twitter, except it’s taken much longer for the penny to drop as to why anyone would want to use it, frankly.
For ages, I would ask friends who used twitter what the point of it really was?
- Nobody could explain it!
Some admitted they felt the same way, and they only had an account because it was de rigeur these days, especially those in business for themselves.
Twitter has been somehow stuck with the reputation that’s it’s full of people spouting mindlessly inconsequential drivel to people who aren’t listening anyway.
My breakthrough moment came via my day job. I’ve been following the development of the use of social media within the organisation, and promoting it wherever possible. OK, so it feels like trying to run through treacle most of the time but persistence will grind them down eventually, right?
An email digest from the various Community of Practice groups I’m subscribed to arrived with news of a lunchtime chat on a channel they called #lgovsm, which I presumed to be an abbreviation of local government social media.
Using my favourite twitter app, the fabulous Tweetdeck, I told it to search for #lgovsm. Loads of interesting posts came up from people who I didn’t know, but with an interest in this topic, and clearly lots of experience and insight too, which they were more than willing to share. Wow, great!
And this is the key factor -twitter’s trick- that nobody was able to tell me about. Whilst facebook is really useful for keeping track of the inane ramblings of people I know in the real world, twitter extends to me the open arms of generous strangers with shared interests. And none of them thought I needed to know about their silly farms! How refreshing.
What’s become clear to me is that twitter can be used in different ways. If you just want to follow celebs and grab some light entertainment, by all means follow the delightful Stephen Fry and other twittionados (did I just invent a new word?).
If you feel the need to type a running commentary on your own life, even though chances are, nobody’s listening, go ahead! It can be quite therapeutic to reflect, so go for it.
But it’s through the random nature of communication through shared interests with people outside your own network (via hashtags) where it can really come alive.
In a way – and I’m about to go all cosmic on you now – it reaffirms a belief in the human spirit, in generosity, in a shared world in which people are mostly, at their core, inclined to help other humans out. In a crazy world where we’re more or less encouraged to be suspicious of others, how ironic is it that it’s taken a network of machines to bring us back round the campfire?
Please feel free to leave a comment.
Pingback: Tweets that mention Twitter – I get it now! | Scarlet Fire -- Topsy.com