The Power of Twitter

Whether reading an article or having a conversation with people (face-to-face) and reading/hearing the phrase “It’s just twitter,” irritates me–especially when it’s drenched in a condescending tone. I find that people who have muttered this phrase don’t understand the power of twitter and what it can really do for your brand, business and/or service or product. Having a networking tool available at your fingertips that can reach the far ends of the globe and back within seconds is a phenomenal thing. But just how can twitter be effectively used and what exactly is the power of twitter?

Twitter alone can’t do anything for you so don’t just sign up and expect miracles to happen, there has to be a purpose behind the tweets; this isn’t the Wizard of Oz, folks. I recently had a conversation with a top executive who wasn’t familiar with twitter and he immediately stated how Ashton Kutcher was the best twitterer in the land because he had millions of followers and that’s how the game was played. I disagreed and immediately named six people who had far less followers who were using twitter in ways that were truly engaging and changing the world in a positive way. Now, I have nothing against @aplusk but what he does with his twitter account is give the average Joe a glimpse into the life of a mega star. In researching for this article, I popped over to Ashton’s page (I don’t follow him) and saw that he’s in Russia–from his tweets, twitpics and constant hashtags on rumplestinkel I didn’t see him tweet back to any of his followers. But if you pop over to, let’s say, power@tv, you’ll find a different twitter atmosphere, a place where it’s not all about himself, but about his followers as noted by every other tweet he’s engaging with them and at over 6,400 followers–he’s doing a great job. What is he doing with his twitter page? he’s motivating people, inspiring them to get to the next level and when one of his followers gets a tweet back from him the brand name strengthens because he isn’t just talking the talk–he’s skipping, hopping and running the walk–right along with the loyal followers.

For me, as a dating/relationship blogger, I want people to come to my blog, read it and hopefully leave a comment. If all I did daily was send out tweets on new blog posts–eventually people would unfollow me and boycott my blog. But instead, I use twitter to ruffle a few feathers in the dating world and help people in their dating quests. I tweet out surveys, other people’s blogs, and various dating articles while also interjecting a few personal tweets on my own dating mishaps–which really stirs up the pot. I get replies from people in South Africa, Australia, and Brazil (to name a few) who all want to know.

That, my friend, is the power of Twitter–to engage, empower and inspire. Not everyone will follow this path, but you can certainly see where “It’s just Twitter” doesn’t cut it for me. Now I ask you–what will you be doing with the power of Twitter?