An Introduction to Twitter

The Twitter hype machine is in overdrive. You can’t watch the news or go online without getting some new information about Twitter. Whether it’s a story about how Google is going to buy Twitter or hearing about how Ashton Kutcher beat CNN in a race to one million followers, Twitter is everywhere.

The interesting thing is—a lot of people still have no idea what Twitter is.

I was at my in-laws and the CNN vs. Kutcher story came up. They asked me, “What is Twitter?” After I gave a brief explanation, I was then asked, “Why would people use it?” Surprisingly, this was a harder question to answer. It seems so obvious why people would use it, but that’s because I use Twitter myself. For those who don’t, the whole idea can seem rather silly. To quote my father-in-law, “Why do people care what you’re doing?” Likewise, explaining to people what Twitter is can be difficult because you make assumptions on what they know, or don’t know, when it comes to social media. So I thought I’d share a simplified description of what I think Twitter is.

The definition I’ve heard the most is that Twitter is a “microblog” where you can post updates of 140 characters or less to your followers. Because I use Twitter, and am familiar with social networking, that definition makes perfect sense. To someone who doesn’t use Twitter, or someone who doesn’t blog—it might as well be a different language. What is a microblog? What kind of updates? Who are followers?

Forget microblog, forget followers. Twitter is simply a place where you can publicly answer the age-old question: “What are you doing?” Of course there has to be others on Twitter who care what you’re doing. These are your followers. If you’re Ashton Kutcher, there are over a million people who care what you’re doing. If you aren’t Ashton Kutcher, you can still easily get hundreds of followers. And many of them may be exactly the kind of folks you need to stay in touch with for your business.

According to Twitterholic the top five people/groups currently being followed on Twitter are: (and I won’t get into the depressing implications of this list)

1. Ashton Kutcher - http://twitter.com/aplusk
2. CNN - http://twitter.com/cnnbrk
3. Britney Spears - http://twitter.com/britneyspears
4. The Ellen Show - http://twitter.com/TheEllenShow
5. President Obama - http://twitter.com/BarackObama

My next post will start looking at how Twitter actually works and how to put it to use. In the meantime, here are a few links to help you out:

• Twitter 101 – Part 1
• Twitter 101 – Part 2
• A Practical Twitter Primer

You can find me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/bkhowland

Tags: cnn, followers, introduction, kutcher, microblog, Obama, primer, social media, twitter, Web 2.0, what is twitter