Rules of Twitter

While tending to my Twitter addiction, one of the people I am following (the today show to be exact), posted a link of a story by the New York Times titled "Twitter? It's What You Make of It."

Intrigued, I decided to click the link and read through the two pages of nothing short of perfect social media talk!  My overall opinion was to use Twitter however you want!  And I feel people often get lost and feel like they need to follow rules.  In fact, this article states just that.  You don't have to follow the rules.  Don't read EVERY tweet, just skim for things that interest you. 

I also loved the "rule" about using the Web site.  I will admit, for a few months, I stuck to Twitter.com.  Then, someone turned me on to using Twitterific on the Macs in my usual hang out.  Next, I ventured out and tried Tweet Deck.  This tool was so much better!  It separated my running tweets from my direct messages to my replies.  How much more perfect can it get?

Well does get better! Now, not only do I have Tweet Deck, but I also have Digsby.  This links my AIM with my Twitter and a bunch of other social media sites.  This is easier at times than Tweet Deck because I don't get as distracted by notifications and new Tweets.

No matter what, this article was awesome and really made me see that Twitter is going to only get bigger and better!

Tweet Tweet

As everyone knows, I have bashed Twitter week to week in class. But after reading a webinar on the Fahlgren-Mortine Web site, my mind has changed. There is so much you can actually do with Twitter. It reminds me of AIM in a sense. Twitter is like having a conversation with multiple people when they get around to it. I can post a question and multiple people answer me, but on their own time. I should have given Twitter more of a chance from the beginning. At least now I know better and am going to start taking this page a little more seriously. I feel there is a lot to learn from people on Twitter, not only about social media, but news and PR in general.

Creeping Made Easy

First, there was the news feed on Facebook. Where you could find out what all of your friends were up to. Then there was Twitter. Where users update their statuses everytime they start something new. Now, there is FriendFeed. In this week's PR Tactics, writer Claire Celsi discussed this "one-stop social networking" site. She even quoted some avid social networking users when claiming this site is "Twitter on steroids." The whole idea of FriendFeed is to have one site that will update you on all of your social networking accounts. All of the updates on Twitter can be seen through this site along with Facebook and even blogs.

I decided to check out the site since it was sounded like the next big thing. And much like Twitter, it seemed overwhelming. I quickly closed out of the sign up page and tried to look around the site some more. Celsi did say that it took time to get used to and that you needed to weed out what you didn't want to read, but I am still apprehensive about signing up. I feel like this might be another site I won't use and will curse at. There are just so many social networking sites that I am signing up for, I'm afraid I won't keep up with most of them. Yet, this site claims to link them all together, like a data base. So part of me thinks I should give it a chance, cause I can always delete my account. Like many of our speakers have said at PRSSA, you need to be on the cutting edge with this stuff to appeal to potential employers. I guess I should stop thinking so much and give it a try.

Too Many Tweets

While sitting in class just now, I tried to log on and utilize the social media site Twitter. To my surprise, it was "over capacity" and there were "too many tweets." Looks like twitter is getting popular!