I have to come clean. For the longest time I didn't get it. Twitter? People posting pithy comments about what they're thinking and feeling? I didn't see much point in it.
But that changed this summer. I now think Twitter is actually pretty important.
For me it started when the NFL lock-out ended.
I'm a bit of a football fanatic. I heard all the talk on sports talk radio about how the period of time right after the agreement was reached was going to an action-packed, fast-moving free-agent signing period. What would normally take 7 weeks for the NFL to complete, would be done in only 7 days this year. It was going to be exciting. All the radio announcers were telling us to follow them on Twitter to stay informed and I decided to see how that went. I had an account that I hadn't done much with so I went in and started to follow six or eight local football writers and radio announcers. I also started to follow a number of my favorite Bucs' players. I wanted to know what they were thinking as they prepared for training camp.
I found it fascinating. I left Twitter open under my other computer tabs and checked it out when there were more than 20 or 30 tweets waiting to be read. I could skim through those quickly, get updated as news broke, read some interesting stuff from the players I followed (along with some nonsense), then return to what I was doing. In this day of multi-tasking I didn't feel that it was much of a distraction and I enjoyed knowing what was happening.
Then I decided to follow those same writers and announcers during one of the Bucs' preseason games that was not televised locally. I sat in the living room with my wife. We had a movie on the television and as I watched it I was able to follow the game just as well as if I were listening to it on the radio.
At this point I was thinking that my inner-geek was starting to take over. All this to follow football? Was I taking it too far?
Then there was a major earthquake in Virginia that shook the whole east coast. I heard about it first, as it was happening, on Twitter, not only from news organizations from from people who were living through it and were frighted by it, people who were worried about family and friends. It was compelling. It was hard to break away from. Then Hurricane Irene sprang upon the same region. I was able to follow its progress and its destruction, as it happened, on Twitter. There has been an increasing amount of breaking local news posted on Twitter, always before you could hear it or read it anywhere else.
I get it now. I am looking at Twitter in a different light. I believe it has become an important source for news, information, opinion and whimsy. It can be your source for any thing you want because you decide whose posts you follow and whose don't interest you (I have since stopped following some of the Bucs.). In doing so you create its theme and attitude. It will be different for you than it is for me. And if we do it right, it will be perfect for both of us..
Twitter has come of age. Its numbers are growing quickly and dramatically. Millions of people are deciding it's important. Shouldn't that make it important to marketers as well?
Some ideas about marketing on Twitter... coming tomorrow.
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