“Twitter isn’t for me”
This is exactly what I said before and immediately, after I got Twitter in September 2021. My friend Anubhav inspired me to get Twitter when he told me how it was the best way to keep up with start-up news, and how easy it was to reach out to people he looked up to (hello Michael Batko). But after a few minutes of scrolling on Twitter, and some reposts here and there, I stopped using Twitter for the next 4 months.
I honestly just didn’t know how Twitter worked.
My go-to social media platforms are Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn which are essentially large social networks. I use all of them quite passively to keep up to date with other people, and post some life or work updates here and there but never frequently.
What I didn’t fully grasp, is that Twitter is primarily a microblogging platform.
I was in a social networking, rather than microblogging mindset, that prevented me from fully capitalising on Twitter.
Why Twitter is Built for Microblogging
The 280 character word limit. This means that the typical tweet is quick, easily-digestible and succinct. This makes microblogging very easy for the lay person.
It’s a real-time platform. You primarily see what people are saying right now. It’s like a constant newsroom.
Twitter relationships are one way. You follow the people you want to hear from, it doesn’t necessitate a follow back.
So how do you best use Twitter?
Use it right!
Like any other platform or product, you'll see the best results when you use it the way it was designed for.
Use it for microblogging; for quickly communicating with your audience, constantly interacting with people and building up or finding a community that you love and are inspired by.
How I’m going to be using Twitter From Now On
Create my own personal brand, by exploring my wide range of interests openly for everyone to see and for some to resonate with.
Mindfully making sure I'm tweeting consistently; the goal is around 1-3 times a day (a big jump from 0 tweets for 4 months!).
Find my community on Twitter - curating my Twitter following to people who inspire me, and who I personally want to connect with and learn more from!
Dharmesh Shah, the co-founder of HubSpot with 287.7K followers on Twitter at the time of writing, used Twitter by tweeting articles he wanted to read later on. He used it as a public reading journal, and it seems like a lot of people wanted to read those articles too!