Why do you Tweet?

It occurred to me today that social media is a bit like football. The teams we support are the media we favour using and we can get quite ‘tribal’ about that (how often have you expressed disbelief that someone isn’t using the same channel as you?) And just like football, we can all behave like fantasy-league managers when it comes to discussing ‘team tactics’ ie how you should use your media of choice.

Take Twitter for instance. fatBuzz’s Gordon White and I both tweet but, as I found out during a natter following a recent New Media Breakfast, the ‘birth’ of our 140 character ramblings is very different.

Gordon’s belief is that your tweets should be entirely ad hoc and done at a time when you’re free to respond should anyone pick up on them. For example, when he tweets about an upcoming fatBuzz event and someone replies, “Looking forward to it,” he tweets a comment back there and then. For Gordon, Twitter is primarily about interaction.

For me, Twitter is more about keeping on people’s radars, with the odd bit of interaction leading from that, and using it as a channel to give people clues to who you are and what you have to offer ie your personal brand. So I approach my tweets differently (what can I say…doing things ‘my way’ is a theme of my brand!)

I’m a big fan of schedulers – in my case Hootsuite and Buffer – as they allow me to take part in the Twittersphere despite my mare of a diary meaning I’m seldom free to tweet when I need/want to. So I sit for half an hour on a Sunday and set up a mix of messages for the coming week – some sharing information from others, some sharing my own knowledge eg blogs and some giving a ‘shout out’ to other Tweeters I’m due to meet or who have retweeted me recently. Schedulers also allow me to consider the wording of my messages so they give people the right impression of my personal brand through my language and links – well, I’ve got to walk the talk, haven’t I?

I then add to those with other (infrequent) messages on the hoof, when I have time to reply, to get a bit more of that ‘in the moment’ banter Gordon rates (which I agree, is a real bonus of Twitter). A case in point was a question I posed the evening I was off to a football match, asking what people recommended I do to stay warm (I started the ball rolling with a suggestion that I just eat pies). I got a few replies - most of them sensible, though one wit told me having a fondue was the way to go - and I tweeted back, strengthening my online relationships with those people.

Unlike football though, there’s no offside rule to give guidance on the state of play; no-one decrees how you should use Twitter. It’s more important to have a clear idea what you want it to achieve and how you’ll go about doing that…and then do it your way.

So how do you use it?


About Me

I have presented at the Glasgow and Edinburgh New Media Breakfasts on the subject of personal branding. It's a pleasure to be guest blogging on the fatBuzz Blog, hopefully I can bring you some useful information in the future. Meantime, you can read more from me on my own Spark Branding blog here.

Alternatively you can contact me via Linked-In or Twitter at the links below or via Fiona MacDonald fiona@fatbuzz.com

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