Tranter Banter

It’s time to bite the bullet and talk about Twitter.  For some reason I’ve avoided this talk for a long time.  Maybe because there is so much to Twitter – so much more than meets the eye and talking about Twitter and covering it correctly can get pretty involved.

I went to great lengths to avoid using Twitter because I thought it was so stupid.  Who cares where I have lunch or what book I’m reading or where I’m heading for the day.  But it doesn’t look too great for me to be talking about social media sites and not have a Twitter account of my own.  I do have Twitter sites for my brick and mortar business and some of my clients, but having my own just seemed a waste of time.

I am happy to say that I have changed my mind about this. Completely changed my mind.  In fact, Twitter is probably one of my favorite sites now.  Twitter is not nearly as dumb as you might think! 

A friend of mine is a well known voice coach and called one day to ask about Twitter.  I talked her into trying it and had some suggestions about how she could find some new contacts.  A few days later she called me back to tell me that she had just had a sale of her voice coaching program by following one of the suggestions that I had.  My suggestion was that she connect with Amazon or Barnes and Noble and see if she could come across anyone who liked the same books she did.  If so, she could try and find that person on Twitter and connect with them. Well, that’s exactly what she did.  She found a person who loves gardening and growing flowers.  They made a connection and this woman bought my friend’s DVD.

This same friend of mine then called me a couple of weeks ago to tell me that she was off to California for a new gig.  Seems that she was contacted on Twitter by a Fortune 500 company in the Silicon Valley to coach and give voice lessons to some key employees.  What a gig that was.

I’ve been able to connect with some great people and businesses right here in our own backyard.  In fact, the UticaOD is on Twitter as are most of the reporters and photographers. During a storm this winter my son couldn’t tell if HCCC was open or closed and @UticaOD helped us get that information.  During a recent hail storm @CNYWeather tweeted me to let me know there was nothing coming after the storm and the weather would be clear.  A recent posting I made on Twitter for an upcoming concert at MLK Farm this summer resulted in 165 clicks for more information on their website and 48 Facebook posts.  Just in our area.

So Twitter really isn’t that stupid afterall.  Feel free to connect with me @ULrnSocialMedia.