Eight Things I Love About Twitter

My post Eight things I hate about Twitter has become the second most read post on my site, as well as one of the most commented upon. This means I’m in danger of becoming the Twitter Hate “Guru” – and in a bid to prevent that, I’d like to balance things with by telling you eight things I love about Twitter, so here we go:

Traffic
There is no doubt that Twitter drives traffic to my site, and for that I am very grateful. It is important that you give to Twitter as well as receive. I do get pissed off with people who simply use the medium to promote their sites. If that’s all you do, you’re wasting your time as people won’t bother looking. Far better to be someone who is interesting, who retweets other interesting stuff and who generally adds value to the feed. That way, when you do put one of your posts on there, people are likely to go and have a look at it.

Laughs
I’ve had so many laughs with Twitter – the family thinks I’m mad the way I lean back in my chair and roar! I’ve met some of the quickest witted people ever on there.

Celebrities
Yep! There are plenty of fake ones, but a surprising number of real celebrities on Twitter, and I follow a few, and even better, a few follow me. It gives a terrific insight into their lives.

Better still is gaining access to our very own blog world celebrities - via Twitter we get to chat with John Chow, Darren Rowse, Steve Pavlina and all the other internet gurus.

Answers
It’s amazing how much in the way of opinion and information you can get quickly via a tweet – try it next time you need some advice.

News
Quite a few stories have broken on Twitter before the main agencies had them. Most recently Twitter had news of the death of John Travolta’s son Jett, way before it was carried on TV.

Brevity
I love the whole 140 character thing – it teaches brevity (always a good thing in writing) and just cuts all the waffle out of conversations.

Internationalism
Twitter knows no boundaries, and as a result nobody bothers with the usual “Where are you?”, “what time is it there?” stuff you get on many platforms – it doesn’t matter, when you’re on, you’re on.

Photos
It’s so good to be able to see what people look like – although as someone who needs to remain anonymous, you’ll see my photo doesn’t qualify, but I will reveal who I really am at some time this year!

If you’re not already following me on Twitter, please do - @mikecj

What do you love about Twitter?

If you want to know all about Twitter and how to use it, check out The Beginners Guide to Twitter