I’ve been using Twitter for a few weeks now, so I decided it was time for an update on my experiences with it.

It is interesting. I’ve been able to interact with a variety of marketers, some quite well known. I’ve been directed to articles I never would have noticed otherwise, but were quite interesting.

I have 92 followers as of this writing. That’s not bad considering that I don’t really do much to build the following there, although I do have links to my Twitter profile on some of my sites. But that’s 92 people who might just notice what I have to say.

I do a mix of tweeting things going on in my daily life with links to articles I’ve written or found interesting. I don’t really have the focus I think I should, yet.

How Many Accounts?

Right now I have one account. I am considering spitting it out to a second account, so that each is more focused. Considering that I feel you need to tweet several times a day for any particular account I can’t say I can see going beyond that.

I haven’t decided for certain to do that yet. There are advantages, certainly, to focusing things on a particular niche with an account, just as there is for any other form of marketing. But it’s an additional amount of work I’m not sure I want to put into Twitter yet.

How Responsive Are Twitter Followers?

I can’t say that I’ve gotten a great response on Twitter yet. Some of it is due simply to numbers. 92 really is a small number there, and people are not terribly likely to notice a tweet if they aren’t online at the time. Matter of fact, it can be easy to miss a tweet just by stepping away from the computer, depending on how you check on the people you’re following.

But at the same time I do understand that people can be very responsive on Twitter. People have asked questions there and gotten dozens of responses, just about instantly. That’s not something you can get just anywhere.

Making Twitter Easier to Use

I use Twhirl to keep up with what’s going on with the people I follow on Twitter. As I recall, it was a tweet from Maki that brought it to my attention. There are other programs that do similar things, and of course you can use it from your cell phone if you can do SMS messages.

Who Do You Follow?

Finding interesting people to follow is a big part of the fun. I started out searching for a few of the names I knew would be on there, and then added in by using keyword searches and seeing who looked interesting.

As with anything of this sort, a lot of accounts weren’t particularly active, some with many months since their last tweet. I don’t follow those, as a rule.

Another tactic I used to find people to follow was to look at who people I already follow are following. It’s a way to see a lot more accounts than I would have otherwise.

I also found Who Should I Follow while using StumbleUpon. It’s an interesting concept. You enter your Twitter name, and it makes recommendations. I thought the results were interesting, and did follow some of the people it recommended. Only time and tweets will tell me for sure if they’re good choices.

The Hazards

Biggest hazard to Twitter is that it can be a time suck. Reading all the tweets, following interesting links, tweeting… it can add up.

On the plus side, tweets are short. Reading them doesn’t take much time, nor does tweeting.

It’s just like forum marketing or anything else where it’s possible to get sucked too deep into the social side of things. You need to remember why you’re there and keep some focus on your goals while still having fun and being interesting. No being an obnoxious marketer!

Benefits on Other Social Media Sites

Tonight I had one of the people I follow on Twitter locate me on StumbleUpon. That’s another friend on a site I use regularly, and someone I’ve made some sort of impression upon. Not a bad deal at all.

Other Twitter Perspectives

Of course many other bloggers have posted their thoughts on Twitter, so I’ll close this out with more links you may enjoy.

5 Tips to Grow Your Twitter Presence
Building Your Twitter Presence Part 2 - Pre-Prepared Tweets
Building Your Twitter Presence Part 3 - TweetBaiting
Twitter Networking 101
Tweeting Outside The IM Niche…
Social Marketing Pitfalls & The Twitter Time Suck
Why Twitter Is Not Stupid!
So How Do You Find People on Twitter?

I finally gave in and signed up for Twitter. People are making such a fuss about it, so I thought I would see what the big deal is.

It’s kind of interesting. I picked a variety of people to follow right at the start, although I have no doubt I’ll be following others soon enough. Just have to wait and see how it goes.

I can see where it could be a big time waster, but I also can see the advantage in the short messages. It just takes a moment to say something… because that’s all the room you’ve got.

That said, keeping this post short and sweet. Off to get some more work done around and about the web.