Twitter is reportedly picking up speed in terms of usage among the Internet-literate. Twitter usage has grown from 6% of Americans online last May to 9% in November, then 11% in December, according to a report from Pew Internet & American Life Project.
I recently took the plunge into using Twitter, despite all my reservations about it possibly being a tremendous time commitment or turning into some kind of weird addiction. So far, I haven't found it to be such. But I've limited my usage. And I get the feeling there's more I could do with it than I have been.
So it's heartening for me to read that a tech expert like David Pogue is just as confused as I am about how to properly use Twitter. And reassuring to know that, while there may be some guidelines on its use, there are no hard and fast rules.
When you come down to it, what you get from Twitter would seem to be a function of what you are seeking in particular. It's probably advisable to develop a strategy for using it. There are a couple of aspects of Twitter within your complete control: the people you follow and the things you tweet about. But how to get followers? By microblogging on topics that will attract people you'd like to have as an audience? And how many people should you follow? Clearly, as Pogue points out, you can't really follow hundreds or thousands of people closely. Not and have a life.
I still don't have all the answers on using Twitter, but it's interesting to experiment with it. And I think it gives writers a great resource for finding out information, marketing, networking and so on.
Just don't spend all day doing it. Because, as Pogue concludes, "It may be powerful, useful, addictive and fascinating--but in the end, it’s still an Internet time drain."
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