One woman's experience with Twitter

The New York Times today has an article that chronicles one woman's experience in trying to use Twitter with her family. The bottom line, they didn't get it. Walter J. Carl, an assistant professor of communications studies at Northeastern University, said:

The people who I see using it are an older demographic, people in marketing or P.R. or advertising, who use it for work, to present themselves as particular types of people. They’ll twitter, ‘I’m traveling,’ or ‘I’m going to interesting restaurants.’ They’re using it to do identity work.

I find Twitter to be an excellent tool for:

• Offering and receiving support
• Exchanging short bits of information
• Making people aware of what you do

However, for it to be productive, you need to be Twittering with a group of people that you have something in common with. They may be friends, work colleagues, or fellow hobbyists. Without that group, Twitter is meaningless.

And Twittering with people you barely know is okay. You may find that Twitter helps you to get to know them better and build trust....all stepping stones for successful networking.

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Technorati tags: Connecting, Twitter