How I Use Twitter
June 23rd, 2008. Published under General. No Comments.
I was thinking of what long blog post to write on my blog. I have been dwelling on it for a week or so and this one just came to me.
So right now I am listening to TWiT (This Week in Tech) and I am listening to all the guest and Leo shamelessly plugging their Twitter accounts in a bid to market themselves and products they own/endorse.
So this got me thinking about how and what I use Twitter for. I have a few topics to talk about and explain why I do them, when I do them and if I could use certain methods in the future. But before I start let me say that I think Twitter is awesome and hope more people follow me and actually get chatting to me. I do not just want people to follow me for no reason. I want conversations people! 
Updates
Facebook started getting me into a certain frame of mind where I just want to write what mood I am in. But gradually over the past few months I have actually used Twitter to say what I am up to, generally if it is interesting. I think it is quite pointless saying things like, “I am in the kitchen feeding the dog”. To me I feel it does not benefit anyone and gives no useful information. But if it is a message like “Wow the new series of Top Gear is about to start on BBC2”. This clearly gives some people information that could well be valuable.
Chatting
Now don’t get me wrong. For “real” chatting I use Windows Live Messenger. But by chatting on Twitter I mean maybe a conversation involving about 4 or more tweets. For instance @Teifion had a very brief chat about TV shows we are interested in. That was about 4 tweets back and forth and to me that was chat that fits what Twitter is there for. If you want more chatting then that use e-mail or IM! (My opinion).
Sending Links
By this I mean links to YouTube and interesting news stories. Also links to my own sites and blog posts (including this one), but I will cover that in a bit. These URL’s are either a site I look at or a link that I might have got from another tweet that I like. This could also be breaking news or other information I think people following me might like.
Marketing
This word does now make me sounds like an evil corporation! But believe me I do not aggressively shove my sites down people’s throats. Instead I try to use subtle methods of marketing myself and apps I develop. I do this by sending all links after I have put them through Litturl to shorten them. This is subtle as it might only take a few inquisitive people to see what Litturl.com is and even try the app out. Also when I write blog posts or write a blog post on any of my sites I put them through Litturl and tweet them. To me this is not aggressive and I do not mean to shove it in people’s faces.
That really summarises how I use Twitter. I was going to go into how other people aggressively use their other channels to get their Twitter usernames out there in order to get to the top of the.
Anyway let me know how you use Twitter and why you use it. I would be really interested to hear.
Oh and of course my shameless plug! If you want to keep up with me, chat to me or just want to follow me you can at Twitter.com/olliedude2k.
Thanks for reading.
Ollie