Twitter

Twitter is a free micro blogging Web 2.0 service that enables its members to read and send messages known as Tweets. Tweets are short text posts of up to 140 characters displayed on the author’s profile page and delivered to the author’s followers.

You can send “Tweets” via the Twitter website, your mobile phone, instant messaging and a couple of other third-party applications. Twitter is one of the most used and top social media channels available to anyone but most members misunderstand the real power of this excellent Web 2.0 tool. Find below a couple of popular myths regarding Twitter

Popular Twitter Myths

You can’t say enough with 140 characters: Twitter forces you to be short and to the point in 140 characters or less. This gives you about 25-30 words to say what you have to say. Many “Tweets” are summaries containing the titles of blog posts and articles that links back to the original content.

You should always answer the question of “what’s happening?”: Although this is the first question you will see when you are posting an update on Twitter, it’s really all about what you want to share with the world – content sharing. In this way it really has turned into a micro blogging platform that anyone can use to share interesting topics, discuss trends, notify others, etc.

Twitter is only used for shameless self promotion: Even though there’s thousands of Twitter members that uses it this way, spamming Twitter to generate traffic to your website and blog doesn’t work. Think of it this way, if you were doing this at a social gathering, people will walk away and excuse themselves. Respect goes a long way.

There’s too much information on Twitter: In most ways this is true, but you have total control over whom and how many that you follow. Keep your network focused and follow only those that you find meaningful, informative and interesting. Unfollow the ones that you find to only Tweet meaningless babble.

People don’t care what video you are watching now: This is true, but they do care if you have found a great YouTube video that will help them with a problem they might be having. Always keep your Tweets confined to interesting topics that are helpful and that others will find interesting or you will lose followers.

Follow only those that are following you: No, only follow those that you find interesting and meaningful. Focus on quality over quantity. You can use Twitter to foster relationships and selectively listen to only those that you want to. It is not about getting as many connections as possible.

All your followers will read your Tweets: This might happen if your followers are following only a couple of people. Many people are following hundreds of or even thousands of people. You can only get an overview of the activity and Tweets that are occurring.

I need lots of followers to make a success of Twitter: Many people make the mistake of believing that the only way to be successful on Twitter is by having lots – thousands of followers. They believe they will then be able to market their message to all of their followers. Yes it is true that if you have thousands of followers and you post an update that more people will see it, the real power of Twitter is in its real-time search engine. Have a look at Twitter search.

The Twitter search platform is most likely the best real-time search engine available today where you can search for anything in real-time what is happening on the Twitterverse. 99% of searches starts with a question. What if you can answer those questions in real-time?