Twitter for Dummies - Laura Fitton [98]
Follow @breakingnewson for the latest in breaking news, a favorite amongst many Twitter users.
Although Twitter has proven itself to be a great tool for getting live updates and eyewitness reports, traditional journalism and fact-checking still has a place. Sometimes, in the heat of an event or moment, rumors can spread as easily as fact across Twitter, so take each piece of information with a grain of salt. Depending on how much you trust the person who’s providing the updates, you know how much legwork you have to do (if any) to validate her claim. By the same token, perpetually spreading false rumors reduces your reliability as a source to your followers.
Getting recommendations
Twitter’s a great resource for getting recommendations from your friends and contacts. Say that you’re an employer looking for a reliable office manager. A great way to start is by asking your Twitter network for help in staffing that position. In fact, your next office manager may come from your Twitter following.
Or perhaps you’re looking for the best Chicago-style pizza in New York City. Ask your Twitter network for suggestions on where to go. If you have contacts in both Chicago and New York, you might have a bit of fun reading their tweets while they argue the finer points of crust thickness, cheese selection, and topping distribution. In the end, you’ll likely have a few pizzerias and restaurants to try out (and more information about your contacts’ food preferences than you bargained for).
Sharing Information
One of the things that new users notice quickly on Twitter is the abundance of shared information. You’ll find that people share everything — from recipes to complex PowerPoint presentation files or slide decks — seemingly without a second thought.
Sometimes, people question the motives of those sharing or worry that the people who see and use the information might somehow steal it. Addressing that concern requires a fundamental psychological shift in thinking: Part of the success of Twitter is the concept of giving up some control over the information you release to your network. To quote an old adage, “Sharing means caring.” Sharing with your network increases the value that you have to that network and allows your network to grow. It also shows that you care enough about the people in your network to share what you know, what you’re doing, or what you’re thinking about.
Giving up control might sound a little scary, but it doesn’t have to be. You’ve built (or are building) a network of Twitter users whom you can trust. You can control who you interact with on Twitter and what kind of network you find value in cultivating. Whom you share with can be just as important as what you’re sharing.
Like with any online service (or any gathering of human beings for that matter), nefarious characters do crop up on Twitter. They might try to socially engineer networks, artificially build reputation, or poach information for not-so-up-and-up purposes. The nice thing about Twitter is that it’s pretty self-policing: If you’re concerned about a user, either block or simply ignore him. If you’re concerned about your information becoming public, protect your updates (you can find instructions on how to protect your updates in Chap-ter 3) and allow only people you trust to receive your tweets.
Another way many Twitter users share information is by linking to other Web sites, blogs, and Internet resources. We cover linking in Chapter 9, including how to go about linking to other sites, ways you can reduce your character count so that you can maximize the information and commentary you can include, and linking etiquette.
Chapter 13
Changing the World, One Tweet at a Time
In This Chapter
Twittering the globe for change