The Four Hour Work Week Project – Allison Reynolds

[Not to be confused with the "Death of Twitter" which will be announced by some internet marketer soon]

If you are in the know then you already have a Twitter account. There are plenty of pieces written on the joys of Twitter. How it is micro-blogging, life in 140 characters, indispensable for those that want to keep people in touch. Or as the oldies (certainly not this spring chicken) would say, very Gen Y.

Seriously though, why would you want to keep the world abreast of your every waking moment, or follow those that do?

The Twitterer

You may tweet on about the crap day you are having, or the time it took to get to work this morning, but you also occasionally link to something cool you saw, an opinion piece you wrote or something you want to buy. Why is that important to those that follow you? Because in following you they have voluntarily put you in a position of influence.

Now not everyone on Twitter knows, cares or understands that, but to those who want to get that much closer to their audience/market, Twitter is an invaluable tool just for that very reason. Using Twitter removes the 6 degrees of separation that can exist in other mediums, and allows you to whisper directly into the waiting ears of your your followers. This is pretty powerful stuff.

Who do you Tweet to…and why?

The Tweetee

As a consumer of tweets do you have any responsibility? Not really. You can lurk, and compile and consume. Sure it doesn’t add much to the Twitterverse to just exist, but you are under no obligation to contribute to the many voices and opinions.

The term “silent majority” wasn’t just something some guy made up one day. Society is mostly silent, and even the anonymity of the internet will not induce them to tell us what they had for breakfast. Be aware though, if you are following many people and few follow you, then you could be marked as a potential spammer and blocked by people you would like to follow. It is in your best interests to say something, anything, so others will find you interesting enough to allow to influence them.

I hand pick those I follow because I am interested in, and learning from, their informative tweets. If you talk too much garbage I am going to let you go.

At the time of writing Twitter is experiencing some form of malfunction that has interfered with the normal ebb and flow of statements and replies. Twitterers and Tweetees are seeing disjointed conversations (if you have ever used IRC and been through a Netsplit you may have a bit of an idea what I am talking about). This has brought home to many just how much they rely on the words and opinions in real-time of those they follow. You don’t always know what you’ve got till it’s gone is working right now in Twitter. let’s hope they get it together soon before the chattering crowd finds another medium to get up close and personal with each other.