You've been hearing about Twitter almost everywhere you go, and even Oprah is on Twitter. People have tried explaining it to you, but still, you are scratching your head a bit wondering, "What can I use Twitter for that I can't do with something else I got already like a Facebook page, IM, or text on a cell?
I describe Twitter as a Swiss army knife of texting awesomeness, and here's what you get. I personally enjoy Twitter over all other social networks because it's instant, your page is clean and simple, and the community is uber friendly and a bit older than MySpace and Facebook, 35-49 was the largest age group in Feb 09. {source Nielsen}
Oprah is all about living your best life, so here's 7 everyday things you can do on Twitter to help you along that journey. I also include sample topic #hashtags you can use for searches:
- Accountability tool for reaching a goal: I started using Twitter back in 2007 as a way to help me drop the last 10lbs in a 25lbs loss effort. Because you can use Twitter from a cell phone or mobile device, I would tweet my workouts and that helped me first, to stay accountable to my workouts because I knew people were watching me, and second, it helped me develop a support system of others trying to reach the same goal.
- Find job leads and job hunting tips: Not only are companies starting to use Twitter more for recruiting, but other people tweet about job openings they've heard about or simply ask, "Hey, I'm looking for a job as an {insert role}." Here's a great post on using Twitter for job search including stories from people who actually landed jobs via Twitter. If you're a small company, and can't afford to pay job boards, Twitter is free. Search terms you can use for job hunting include: #jobhunting, #jobsearch, #jobs, #salary.
- Find cooking tips and recipes: There is a very large community of foodies and food lovers on Twitter who just love to share tips and recipes. Once I asked if people had and recipe links or ideas for a low-fat lasagna, and I got 30 replies. I learned that some people use cottage cheese instead of ricotta. Who knew? @chef140 does recipes in 140 characters, @WholeFoods shares tips & recipes, and @Foodimentary dishes out fun food facts. Search terms you can use for food include: #food, #foodie, #recipe, #cooking.
- Get help with your homework: @peetmegan a journalism student was writing a term paper on whether Twitter is considered journalism, so she asked the community on Twitter their thoughts. No doubt she got some amazingly useful responses. Search terms you can use for homework include: #fhomework, #math, #english
- Event planning like weddings, showers, and parties: At WeFollow.com, a directory by subject of people on Twitter, here's a directory for wedding vendors like planners, photographers, and florists, and here's a directory for party vendors like DJs, favors, and venues. @tweetmywedding helps connect brides with tips & trends. Search terms for wedding and events include: #bride, #wedding, #photographer, #event, #party or a city like #Phoenix, #Houston, etc.
- Get travel tips and recommendations: Planning for your next vacation or first business trip? On Twitter you can ask people recommendations on places to stay and sites to see. For business trips, you can ask for good restaurants to take clients. The airlines tweet too like @jetblue and @Southwestair.
Best yet, since you can use Twitter on a mobile device you can get real time results when you're actually in your destination city because you never know what unexpected things might come up. Search terms for travel include: #travel, #trips, #restaurants, or a city like #Venice, #Tokyo, etc.
- Make waiting entertaining: Twitter on a mobile device is like life in your pocket filled with entertainment. During those times you need to wait like at the doctor's office or if you're staying in a hospital, DMV, the hair dresser, or at the airport waiting for your flight, instead of a magazine or book, you can read some live action on Twitter.
One of the advantages of following lots of people is that you get more opportunities to see what others are doing, and it can get pretty interesting particularly during the evening and weekend hours when people are out partying, relaxing, or hanging with friends and family. At Secrettweet.com, you can read anonymous tweets of people's secrets or search for #gossip or #celebrity to find out the latest on celebrities.
So, now can you see some of the usefulness of Twitter? When you're ready to start tweeting on your own, here's 7 topic ideas to get you started on your tweets.
