I F’in love Twitter, its bloody amazing! But how can 140 characters be amazing? Isn’t it just a bunch of celebs moaning or promoting their latest release? Well I am here to tell you different, I wont deny that Twitter has a lot of that. I started tweeting in 2009 and (at the time of writing this, 14,665 tweets later) I have fallen for the social platform. There’s several reasons behind this:
- It’s ideal to connect with people you share interests with;
- Great way to receive customer service from companies who use it;
- I have met some amazing people through Twitter;
- Most people are happy to help or reply;
- Great way to find out the latest news, gossip or yes…follow your fave celeb;
- I have found many amazing places to eat and drink through my followers;
- It opens new opportunities; and
- Great way to connect professionally too.
If you are a regular tweeter you will know all this already though. Without Twitter I wouldn’t have experienced as much as I have in our beautiful capital. It has opened many doors to me socially and professionally. Socially its a great way of finding brilliant restaurants, swanky bars and fun things to do in the city. Plus its all from real people so you get a personal opinion, instead of one from a paid journalist. If your followers say a place is good, then 9 times out of 10 it is! Accounts such as @Secret_London will open up London’s offerings to you. Send a tweet asking where is good to eat, they will retweet it to its many followers, then sit back and wait for the influx of replys and opinions to start flooding in.
Professionally it’s also a great tool to network. With last weeks #Tweetversation held by Twitter UK, where you got to ask @brucedaisley (Director of Twitter in the UK) work related questions, demonstrated how brilliant the platform is for connecting with people who would be of value to you.
After the hashtag extravaganza I retweeted, tweeted and DM’d my way to connecting to the right people who will hopefully open new doors for me to get my foot stuck in.
On a social and professional basis I have found that everyone is friendly and always happy to help. Twitter has certainly helped me out. You just have to use Twitter with an open mind, and sometimes take things with a pinch of salt. All in all, I love Twitter as a social platform and the company, it has introduced me to so many cool things and awesome people (you all know who you are ;-) ). So if you haven’t signed up yet (where the hell have you been all this time?), then I suggest you do, and let it open doors for you, as it has me.
If you have made it to the bottom of my jibberings then you should really follow me. I can be found tweeting under @paulbe_. For ideas of awesome people to follow, go through my following list and pick a few to get you started.