The Twitterati

Posted on March 11, 2009 by Whitney 4 Comments

Twitter can be very useful, but I think we have to start to get over the “New! Shiny!” and get down to the fact that this is one of many tools in your social media kit, not the only one.

If all of the social media mavens are really disciples of the Church of Cluetrain, we should simply admit that Twitter is the equivalent of an ongoing Cocktail Party.

The conversations on Twitter tend to  be:

  • the news of the day
  • Current happenings in your life
  • casual business conversation
  • advice, solicited or not
  • opinions
  • referrals to professionals
  • friends catching up
  • casual business leads
  • snarky gradeschool comments

and more, just like any cocktail party.    Serious business and connections can come out of a great cocktail party.  You can have a lot of small conversations amid a rather noisy room.  People can overhear things, like hot stock tips or gossip, causing a cascade through the room.  You can let your friends know about the latest treasure or find.

But in the end, let’s just accept that Twitter is not really about intimacy, the strength of friendship or getting business done any more than a phone is.  It’s a tool.  It’s not a miracle worker, it’s not magic, and in the end, your successis going to be in the skillful use (or lack thereof) of the tool for your own purposes.

Okay, rant over.  Go about your business, nothing more to see here.

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  • http://www.JustOneMoreBook.com Andrea Ross of JOMB

    Hey Whit,

    Great post, as usual. I’m assuming, though, there must be another side to this story, especially as it sounds like you’re responding directly *to* that other side. I’m stumped, though, as to what it could be. It would be great if you could link to some “twitter-as-intimacy” posts, as I would really enjoy the entertainment.

  • http://www.ldpodcast.com Whitney

    It’s actually not a direct response, but a general dump regarding all the hew and cry about how wonderful twitter is. I worry that people are putting all their eggs in one basket, and don’t get that as much as we may thing all of our online friends are “real friends”, we’re really all enjoying a constant birage of “let’s do lunch” which may or may not lead to anything more.

  • http://www.JustOneMoreBook.com Andrea Ross of JOMB

    Aahh. I get it. Thanks

  • katherine

    Yeah, Twitter is my virtual water cooler — which is neat, because I don’t have a real-life one. It’s a useful thing to have when you work alone at home most of the time.

    I had a rant on my blog a while back when I was overwhelmed by a bunch of “this is how you use Twitter” messages — because for me, like you, I was looking at Twitter as a tool to faciliate certain types of exchanges, and I didn’t think there was a “right” or “wrong” way to use it. Just like any other tool, you tailor its use to your needs.

    But Twitter the tool works for me because the majority of people I follow/who follow me are folks I’ve actually met. And a goodly number of them are people with whom I do have more than a fleeting relationshop. Twitter is the way we touch base. And you’re right — that’s not the thing that creates the intimacy, but in this case, it’s the tool that helps keep the long-distance friendships going until the next face-to-face meeting.