Twitter has become one of my most used online resources. I have to admit that I was a late adopter of Twitter. Ashton Kutcher was already stockpiling millions of users, and even Oprah Winfrey had discovered the service before I finally decided to try it out. I really did not understand the value of the service, and I did not think anyone was interested in my random thoughts. Then, after hearing the millionth reference to an @Twitter ID on one of the podcasts that I listen to religiously, I decided to try it. I now go through withdrawal if I go a day or more without it, and I have all but abandoned my Facebook account.
The attraction to Twitter for me has been true social networking with other people that share my same interests. I am one of two attorneys in a small office, and due to my area of practice, I rarely have the opportunity to communicate with other attorneys. I limit my practice to Social Security Disability, and since it is a non-adversarial practice, I do not even interact with other attorneys when I go to hearings. Although my clients and staff are great, I crave interaction with other people that share the same challenges and interests as me.
Twitter has allowed me to connect with colleagues. In the past, I had to rely on bar associations, conferences, and rare happy hours to communicate with other attorneys. Unfortunately, these interactions were few and far between. Now I just logon to Twitter and I have an instant stream of messages from other attorneys throughout the country. I have the opportunity to trade war stories, to seek advice, and just to share common experiences. Twitter has made my practice more enjoyable, by providing me with the interaction that I missed by choosing to practice with a small suburban firm.
I currently actively read every post by those that I follow on Twitter. I initially envisioned that I would use Twitter as entertainment. I admit that I followed Ashton Kutcher (still do), Britney Spears, Lindsey Lohan, and various other entertainers (no longer follow the rest), but I also followed various technology experts (John Dvorak, Paul Thurrott, Veronica Belmont, Leo Laporte, and Patrick Norton), and blog authors. I soon also found a slew of other attorneys that had discovered Twitter, and realized how much I could learn from them everyday. I found that the site that I turned to as entertainment had quickly turned into a business tool. I even un-followed the majority of people that had caused me to begin using the service in the first place.
It is initially intimidating when you start using Twitter because you basically start with a blank slate. Initiating conversations is awkward, and you have no one following you. But this is where Twitter’s search tools work great. I located people of interest, and then looked at who they were following. Luckily, Twitter even allows you to peek at anyone’s public tweets before you decide if you want to follow them. If you find them interesting, you can follow them. If you are interested about a service, product, person, or anything else, you simply do a search and quickly find people that are experts in that area. Before you know it, suddenly you have followers too.
My recommendation if you are new to Twitter or have not yet started using it, is to start slow. First find people of interest and follow their tweets. Twitter even provides you with suggestions when you initially register for the service. If you are bored or overwhelmed by the tweets, un-follow the user. When you get comfortable, jump in the conversation. If you have something on your mind, throw it out there. Due to Twitter trending and search features, by just tweeting, you suddenly start to have followers. Soon you will have new friends from all over the world.
Currently I am a huge fan of Mashable for information about Twitter. I also love MrTweet for finding more interesting users to follow. I have tagged a number of articles about Twitter from my Google Reader account, and recommend that you read my feed if you want to learn more before getting started. I currently use Twittelator on my iPhone to access my Twitter feeds, and I use TweetDeck on my desktop. Both of these applications provide powerful ways to follow friends and other interesting people on Twitter and offer several options not found on Twitter.com.
So stop hesitating, and if you are not yet using Twitter, start now! And if you find me interesting, also feel free to follow me on Twitter @DisabilityGuy, who knows, we may soon be best Twitter friends for life.
