Tweet To Who?

Wesley Hackett, Technical Lead

I'd always been sceptical about opening a Twitter account having heard about the mundane messages such as "having coffee now, will be reading the times as well" that often proliferate certain famous peoples Tweets.

An interesting conversation with a client got me thinking however. She argued that Twitter was just noise generated by self important famous people and that it would be the death of the average conversation via telephone. The example used during the conversation was Lilly Allen and her Tweets. Lilly's tweets are a blow by blow account of her waking day and has a large fanbase. Now I agree with my client in this sense in that I personally have no interest in knowing what most famous people are doing.

On closer inspection the Tweets generated are 75% noise and 25% solid marketing. Filter out all the 'feeling' tweets and what you're often left with are direct or indirect calls to action. An example is "I'm getting ready to go out in *nightclub x* see ya all there" which for the followers is a direct push to visit *nightclub x* that night to try and see their star. All of that for relatively little financial investment.

This still didn't convince me that being part of Twitter was a worthwhile exercise. So I listed some questions down...

• So what would make Twitter useful?
• What was the major benefit of Twitter?
• How could I benefit from using it?
• Was there widespread use by people I'd want to follow?

So here's the answers I came up with for my questions:

• So what would make Twitter useful? Having links to prominent members of the Sharepoint and Commerce Server communities to follow breaking trends and blog postings.
• What was the major benefit of Twitter? The short 140 character messages means anything Tweeted is short and focused on its point. This is more likely to get a response than say an email as it doesn't over commit the replying party to large amounts of time or effort.
• How could I benefit from using it? Building a professional network of contacts outside C&C in the Sharepoint and Commerece Server communities.
• Was there widespread use by people I'd want to follow? Yes most blog authors I read Tweet.

So now I was armed with a better scope for Twitter usage I decided now was the time to sign up and join the party.

During sign up I encountered my first and possibly most important question. Username? So what would be the harm in choosing something a little funny, well I've encountered this one before..... When Hotmail first launched I was a massive Ford RallyeSport fan and they campaigned the Ford Escort Cosworth so I choose an email address with Ford Escort references. At the time this was fine but some ten years on new friends often chuckle at my email address...

So as I'm aiming to use Twitter for professional use I went with my name. Also adding a reasonably normal image is more likely to have others view you're Tweets.

Using the Twitter site alone is ok but there are loads of applications to aid the Twitter usage. I choose TweetDeck.

Some suggested usage points:

• Be positive.... no matter how frustrated you are by your current problem. Nobody wants to listen to mindless whinging. 
• Word any questions to include key words such as #SharePoint so it appears in peoples search listings.
• Make your Tweet useful or concise if a question. Write your questions as if you were the intended audience, would you bother to reply?
• Say thanks. If someone helps you out then publically reply with a thanks. You would do so in real life so do so on Twitter.
• Don't direct message until you build a rapour with the recipient.
• Be selective about letting people follow you. View any followers and block those you feel will not add to your network value.
• See who people are following. Finding an MVP following someone little known can open a gold mine of hidden tech advice.
• ReTweet when appropriate, but not everything you come across or it becomes noise.

So far using Twitter in a professional only capacity has really paid off. I've had several questions resolved and even have a direct contact with an MVP which has helped immensely for my current project.

Here are some highlighted Tweets that I have found hugely useful:

Andrew Connell
Andrew Woodward
Chris O'Brien
Eric Shupps
Gael Duhamel
SharePoint MVPs