I kept hearing about it and quite frankly, was a little annoyed by all the hype. You know what I mean, like when you hear that same song over and over again on the radio? Eventually you get fed up with it and start to just make fun of it. That’s what happened with me and Twitter.
But then a lot of my customers started asking me questions about it, wanting to know if they needed to use it with their business and customers. So rather than risk looking like I wasn’t in touch with the latest and greatest technology tools out there, I took the plunge on July 2nd, 2007, just a little over a year after Twitter launched. Just as an experiment, mind you. I had no intention of actually embracing this Twitter thing. I only wanted to educate myself so that I could satisfy the curious and then move on because surely this Twitter thing was going to be a flash in the pan.
Then something happened. I tweeted.
Almost 6 years and over 2,000 tweets later, I have no intention of stopping now. In fact, I am fond of telling people that if I had to give up either Facebook or Twitter, there’s no competition. Facebook is gone. Don’t get me wrong, I love Facebook. But Twitter is my home. It is one of the greatest business tools ever invented. Ranking right up there with the fax machine, the stapler, the paper clip, and the personal computer. And judging by the 12 billion tweets per month that are happening around the globe, I think I am right. And just to put that number in perspective, Google handles 100 billion search inquiries a month.
When people ask me to explain Twitter to them (and it still happens often, even 7 years after it was created), I have a difficult time explaining it because it is unlike anything else out there. Truly. Twitter is a communications medium. It is an ecosystem. And it is a community. It can connect you directly with your customers and potential customers unlike anything else that I know of. It can bring you new business, strengthen your existing business, and educate you on things you don’t know. It has changed the very fabric of how we communicate as humans. It has changed popular media. It has created new nouns and verbs that didn’t exist 7 years ago. It gives a voice to millions who would never be able to have a voice. And it can truly be a force for good in this world, if used as such.
I often hear the comment, “You know Steve, I just don’t get this Twitter thing.” And it usually is said by a person who has never used it. So I challenge you to do what I did. But be careful. It just might change your life.
