Twitter – The Hottest of Social Networks
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Since it’s arrival in 2006, Twitter has steadily grown in popularity. It’s creator Jack Dorsey must be extremely proud. Unless you’ve been camping out in the far reaches of Siberia’s wilderness, you had to have heard of this micro-blogging social network.
This site is now used by millions of people around the world, including the news media, politicians and large corporations alike. Twitter is now ranked as one of the 50 most popular websites in the world, according to Alexa’s web traffic analysis. This site currently draws more than 55 million visitors monthly and this figure is growing.
So what’s all the big deal with Twitter and why is it so popular?
Well, it has a catchy name and it is free and easy to use and there is a strong element of fun. You can find my Twitter profile here. Your “Tweets” generally answer the question of “What are you doing? which is designed to stimulate conversation, but has evolved into all sorts of messages. You are allowed 140 characters to deliver your tweet, which is why this is known as micro-blogging.
If you are not a part of this social network yet, you need to sign-up and get involved. You’ll see why so many others have fallen in love with this tool.
Speaking of tools, the tremendous popularity of Twitter has spawned a small industry of utility software packages to assist you in using the service even more effectively than originally designed. I’ll list a few of the ones I use below.
This is one of my personal favorites which I use to update my “Tweets” and monitor friends and business associates. It serves as a browser, keeping you connected to with your contacts on Twitter and Facebook alike. You have the ability to customize this so that you can see just what you want to keep track of. This is a really cool tool, and by the way, it’s free.
Twitpic allows you to share photos on Twitter. Simply create an account (free) and upload photos from your computer or smartphone. If you already have a Twitter account, you’re all set, just login to twitpic with that same login information. If you haven’t tried this out, give it a test drive today. You’ll love it. Go to the homepage and check out the nice photos that popup from all over the globe.
If you are new to Twitter and need a nice background for your profile, here is where you can create or download and existing one. You can create your own background in about 2 minutes, or you can spend a considerable amount of time browsing the many already available on the site. The backgrounds are listed by category and there were 9 different ones the last time I visited. This is a very nice way to obtain a personal brand for yourself.
Twitterfeed is a service that allows you to install a widget onto your website that monitors all of your updates from Twitter. You can see mine to the right of this post. It’s a really great tool that allows me to interact with Twitter directly from this blog, as I can login to my account via the widget.
Twitter has so many updates flashing by at times that you there is no way to read them all. If you are interested in a particular subject while on Twitter, this tool allows you to enter keywords that will sort these updates for you. For instance, say you want to monitor all of the football related tweets today from your friends and followers. Simply enter the word “football” and Tweetscan will provide a listing of everyone who has football currently in their updates. Good stuff huh?
These are but a few of the utility programs available for use with Twitter and there are many more, which goes to illustrate just how powerful and popular this program and service has become. Twitter will be around for a long time to come, so if you’ve not joined the social just yet, now is the time.
I’ll be posting some other valuable information about Twitter here as well, so be sure to come back.
By the way, a good friend and associate of mine has just released his “The Beginner’s Guide to Twitter”. Mike has worked hard on assembling this information for those who are just starting out or are about to take the plunge into the Twitaphere. Check it out here.
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