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This is Conlan. I'm a freelance writer and blogger. I live in Fresno, CA. I write this blog, and other things sometimes. I encourage you to pay me to write things. Please see the "Freelance" page for more information on that. (Seriously.) If you just want to know who I am and what I'm all about (including mostly lies), check the "About" page.
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Photographing Whales
In March, I signed up for the awesome-but-difficult-to-define internet service Twitter. Ryan, my friend and a talented photographer, expressed some mild concern: “Twitter is stupid. I just don’t understand the point, or even the fun in it. It’s retarded. Completely and utterly pointless.”
Last week—of course—he signed up for his own account.
Rather than waste time trying to figure out who told whom so, I want to help Ryan fully utilize Twitter for his photography business (and you can come along while I do). It’s true, Twitter can be enigmatic. The natural question we ask as part of a pragmatic society is, “What is it for?” But that’s the wrong question. The right one is, “What, at its most basic level, does it do?”
Twitter users can write and publish anything they want, in 140-character snippets, and send it to the world from the web or their cellphone. Users “follow” others, in the same way that MySpace or Facebook users add “friends”. The effect is, users see an aggregation of all updates (or “tweets”) from everyone they follow. From there, you make your own purpose. The power of Twitter is in your own creativity. (Listen: just forget about the whales, OK?)
Some use the service to communicate with nearby friends, help track social events on-the-go, and generally aid in the whole “hanging out” phenomenon that’s so popular these days among the young folks. Others use it to distribute and comment on niche news—mostly tech stuff. It can also be used to vent frustration or just tell jokes. For most, it’s a combination of these.
Then there are others who use Twitter as a personal way to help build a brand. Geek celebrities like John Hodgman, Leo Laporte, and Jeff Macpherson (Dr. Tiki) use it in the ways described above, but—and here is the key— they also use it to promote their projects and connect with fans. (An increasing number of companies, like Zappos.com and Amazon.com, are maintaining a presence on Twitter as well.) Simply by reading short comments and updates, their followers feel connected, like they’ve gained some insider knowledge—even if twenty thousand others are reading it too. It is direct. It’s personal. It’s mobile. It’s easier than a blog. Plus, it’s fun.
This is what makes it a great tool for a word-of-mouth-based small business like Ryan’s, which targets a younger, creative, tech-saavy clientele. A Twitter link on a blog or MySpace will attract other Twitter users, and may entice curious visitors to sign up for an account of their own. As more people begin following, it opens a new front in the battle for mindshare and word-of-mouth. And that’s never a bad thing.
“OK, Conlan,” you say, “but what does a person possibly have to twitter about, really?” Good question; I couldn’t have phrased it better if I tried. The answer is, you twitter about yourself. If you run a business, you can highlight things that have to do with your business. In the case of my friend Ryan, he’s a photographer, so he can talk about photography things. To help him—and you—get started, I have some examples of possible updates he might use:
As you can see, the possibilities are literarily limitless. Twitter is like the future. And in the immortal words of Doc Brown in Back to the Future, “Run for it, Marty!”