What Is Twitter?

When I conducted a survey back in July/August to capture thoughts and feedback on the platform of Twitter, I found that many people simply don’t understand Twitter. “What is Twitter?” What’s funny is that many of the same people who have said they don’t “get” Twitter, have a Twitter account.

I Just Don’t “Get” Twitter!

I imagine it goes something like this:

• You hear about Twitter and are interested to know what it is and what all the fuss is about.
• You go to Twitter.com (or maybe just Google “twitter”) and signup for an account.
• You walk through all the setup steps, thinking you’re doing it right: adding people and organizations to follow.
• You complete the setup and are taken to the timeline, where you scroll up and down for a bit.
• You notice the names of the people sharing content, but you’re struggling to figure out what it all means.
• You walk away from computer and never log back in because it just didn’t make sense.

Wanna know a secret? That’s nearly everybody’s first experience with Twitter.

Wanna know another secret? That describes my first experience with Twitter, precisely.

I will teach you to understand how Twitter works

Understanding Twitter

Twitter is not Facebook and that is one of the largest objections I hear to the platform. “It’s not as easy as Facebook.” I totally get that. After my initial Twitter experience, I decided not to “waste time” with another social media network. Instead I focused all my social media time on Facebook. I maintained this position until I was invited to stay in touch through Twitter with someone I definitely wanted to stay in touch with.

And that’s when I “got” Twitter.

Twitter is not the best platform for staying in touch with family members. It’s not the best platform for looking at photos. It’s not even the best platform for having one on one conversations. It’s not MEANT to be any of these things.

For me, and for so many others, Twitter is an opportunity to connect with individuals who I would never have a chance of meeting in person, yet, through Twitter I can ask specific questions and get real responses. I’ll give you one for instance.

I’m Friends with Michael Hyatt (kinda)

Michael Hyatt is one of my platform building heroes. He’s been at it for a while and has successfully amounted a tribe of loyal followers who have bought into his approach to leadership and life. I’m one of them. On Twitter Michael has 231,000+ followers. I’m one of them.

I don’t have Michael’s address, phone number, personal email address or iMessage account… yet… If I needed to ask Michael a question, I have direct access to him through Twitter and he has responded multiple times to me directly in over the years. Where else can someone who has a following of that magnitude be accessible to all of them in a way that is sane or orderly? I know not one.

The Guide to Twitter

For several months now I have been talking about my upcoming Guide to Twitter training resource which will help newbies understand Twitter in ways that will make sense to them and guide veterans through tactics and strategies that will help them add followers and build their platform with greater precision and speed.

I recently completed my first video trailer for the series. I share about what Twitter has done for me and a few points of what I’d like to teach others to get out of it. It’s about 5 minutes long and at the end of the video are some clips from the presenters, and they are really good.

Let me show you why you should give Twitter a shot!