Twitter…the what’s next of the internet or a waste of all our time

As an on line marketeer Twitter has been on my digital radar for some time. But as the saying goes ‘ a funny thing happened a few weeks ago’.

Here in the UK it all of a sudden became the buzz word. This wasn’t across a few months or weeks though. It literally seemed to be what everyone was talking about. My recollection of those events (sounds like I’m about to recall the announcement of a war or royal wedding…worry not!) are

that traditional media started to tweet.

Radio DJ’s …

Talk show hosts …

TV presenters….

newspaper columnists…

…They were all at it!

Now I’m not sure if an email went round (how very antiquated!) suggesting that it was time to get ‘down with the kids’ and get on the trendy bandwagon but something definitely happened. Now instead of hearing who’s on a talk show from a trail I find out direct from the host via a tweet; actors tell me their next play and where i can get tickets from and even anti virus software vendors tell me of latest patches and updates all from twitter.

How did I live without it? Already within 3 weeks the first thing i do when i wake up is check on Tweetie (http://www.atebits.com/software/tweetie/ – my iphone app that gets me into my tweet community within seconds) and i now just check it at the end of the night…just in case i miss the post (tweet) of the day.

I’ve even signed up to a Tweet support course, which by the way is fabulous, that takes me through and guides me day-by-day for 100 days on best practice. http://www.nikkipilkington.com/social-media-marketing/tweetmentor-a-business-on-twitter-aid-and-help-twitter-for-business-help for more details.

But is it all worth it?

Well time will tell and your feedback is welcome. within three weeks I have 443 people who read what i say and I read from over 580 other people. Not all are listening and i don’t pay attention to everything i see, but so far there is a network or intelligent, interesting and fun people who i would never have known.

Say what you like about it…it’s a geek thing! and just pick up the phone and talk!  etc…. but right now I like it, and much more important than that is that I think it’s here to stay and as my dad would say > if you don’t buy a ticket you’re not going to win the lottery.