Twitter for Dummies - Laura Fitton [39]
Chapter 6
Who’s Using Twitter
In This Chapter
Meeting the regular folks who tweet
Seeing how companies reach out on Twitter
Keeping up with politicians who use Twitter
Tweeting with celebrities
Identifying syndicated and community-created Twitter accounts
Because Twitter is so easy to use, Twitter opens doors and grants you all kinds of accessibility to people you might never have had access to before. It’s become an effective tool for reaching out to people, companies, and even celebrities, both on- and offline.
Have you ever thought, “I wish I could talk to someone higher up the ladder and get a real solution to this problem!” or even “I’d love to be able to tell this person or that company what a good job they do, but I don’t have their contact info!”? Well, Twitter can help you bridge that gap.
You may be surprised to see which companies, people, and brands have jumped onto Twitter. In this chapter, we cover some of these well-known Twitter users. You can take a look through this chapter to see whether the person or company that you want to find is already here.
Tweeting with Regular People
After it gained a foothold among the digital-media enthusiasts at the South by Southwest Interactive Festival in 2007, Twitter quickly became a playground for techies and geeks. But over time, people from all walks of life have discovered Twitter and embraced it. Twitter allows a user to communicate effectively with one person or many, and the benefits can work for anyone.
Twitter has become a quick and easy way to stay connected to family, friends, and coworkers. People at all levels of all sorts of business can use Twitter to easily interact with customers and potential clients and get real-time engagement and feedback.
You’ll probably want to use Twitter to talk to people whom you know in real life, such as your family and friends, as well as to meet some like-minded people. But you can also meet some very unconventional people on Twitter. Sometimes, the unconventional twitterers are the most interesting. On Twitter, you’ll encounter everyone from celebrities (see Figure 6-1) to local religious leaders and great-grandmothers who blog. You never know who you may find from day to day, which is part of Twitter’s charm.
Figure 6-1: Martha Stewart has her own Twitter account.
But the biggest asset of Twitter is the sheer mass of everyday people who want to share their thoughts, spread the news, and network. You can probably discover at least one new thing from someone on Twitter every day that you log in.
Plus, as superficial as a stream of 140-character messages may seem, the Twitter community has evolved into a real way for real people to connect in the real world, too. You can easily set up meetings and events through Twitter on fairly short notice, so many twitterers find themselves turning their online connections into offline friendships and business relationships fairly often. Both introverted and extroverted people can really benefit from this environment.
So, what noncelebrity people can you find on Twitter? At first glance, you may think that everyone on Twitter is in the technology or marketing industries in some way. The core-base of twitterers who formed Twitter’s initial user group still tweet away, and they’re still some of the most prolific users. But you can also find thousands of people tweeting who are just like you, your mom, or your best friend from high school — in fact, your mom and your best friend from high school may already be on Twitter.
Just because a Twitter user isn’t one of the most prolific people on the service doesn’t mean that person isn’t worth your time. Some of the most interesting twitterers post less than others, waiting to add their two cents until they think they have something worth saying. Keep an eye out for those people and follow them as they become