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Twitter does not have to be complicated.
I just checked with my 1500 facebook friends if they are on Twitter or not. I got very few replies. Some that answered said: I hardly have time with Facebook, why should I emerge myself in Twitter. I will go crazy and get nothing done.
Good point. But considering all the good use Twitter can bring, you need to be convinced by testing it. How can you know if you don't try? And what should you do not to drown in information overload? You need a short-cut not to waste your time!
I am specifically writing this to my birding friends, who seem to have a particularly big aversion towards Twitter. But anyone can make use of the recommendations I give below to testdrive Twitter to see if it is for you.
Twitter is a great tool for birders that most birders have not yet discovered. You can follow (befriend) anyone that shares the same interest as you. Facebook requires acceptance, so in this respect Facebook is more limited. The fact that anyone can see your posts, should in reality allow easier communication among birders. Here is an introduction to Twitter I wrote a couple a months back: Twitter for birders. Part 1. An introduction. Read this before you do anything else.
The one thing to remember is that you don't have to read everything on twitter. It does not have to be a 24/7 activity. With for instance the free apps Tweetdeck or Seesmic Desktop - you can sort the people you follow into groups, and you may monitor streams of keywords - and lots of people you don't follow. You will find both interesting stuff and interesting people to follow.
Next level for birders is to use Twitter as rare bird alert services - for free.
2 week test run. 10 steps to make Twitter useful
1. open an account.
2. Download Seesmic Desktop (I use Seesmic now myself, but used to use Tweetdeck)
3. Make searches in top right corner of Seesmic. I suggest you use birdwatching, birding and a non-birding related outgroup you are interested in - mine is marathon.
Seesmic desktop with search columns. Click on the image to see a larger format.
4. Spend a few days listening to what is going on.
5. Follow the people whose tweets interest you. Just put the cursor over the photo and click bottom right corner of the photo.
6. Eventually, you will want to respond to some tweets. Cursor over the photo and click upper right @sign.
7. Do some tweets of your own. By now you should have realized that the most interesting stuff that others tweeted was not what they had for breakfast or that they were walking the dog. As a birder a rare sighting or an interesting link probably had more value to you.
8. Get a mobile application for you iPhone, Blackberry or smartphone. This way you can read the people you follow on the go and interact with them.
- Blackberry: Several twitter clients are mentioned in this article. Many people seems to prefer Social Scope today. A brand new client that also allows to update your google talk status is Über Twitter. I still use the classical Twitterberry, but shall be changing to either Social Scope or Über Twitter soon.
- iPhone: Here is an article recommending a few Twitter clients for iPhone.
- Smartphones (Nokia, Erikson, etc): Try ce Twit.
9. Keep on doing this for two weeks. By using Seesmic and a phone twitter client - you shall not find Twitter wasting your time. You shall be the pilot in full control at all times.
10. Add me @kolibrix to follow me. I promise I shall be your "support" during the test-drive if you need any questions to be answered.
Please let me know any link all of a sudden does not work. Twitter on Time Magazine photo Steve Garfield under Creative Commons license. All photos made by Gunnar Engblom on this blog may be used under Creative Commons license as long as they are attributed to the original article with a link.
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{ 7 comments }
Wow, you are just great. How do you find time for all of this. You are talking to your birdwatching friends. I tried to get my "group" of friends on Twitter. One signed up and before I could follow her, she closed her account. We will wait for her to come back.
I had not yet heard of Seesmic Desktop, sounds like a great tool. Thank you so much.
I am a fan of Twitter because it has allowed me to meet amazing people like you!
Thanks for this post! I joined Twitter but then couldn't figure out how to find my nature loving friends to 'follow'. I'll study this post and links and then maybe I can at least find you, Dawn and Nate!
Why use Twitter for birding when we have ChirpTracker? We should be advocating tools like ChirpTracker and eBird which are built specifically for our birding purpose rather than another "social" networking site and trying to make it fit our needs. It seems to me like the generic social networking sites are like trying to fit a square peg in a round hole. They do a great job at sharing information fast, which as a birder, that's what I want. But outside of that, it does nothing for me. I would rather share my sightings and data with eBird which is using the data for scientific research which will help with the conservation of birds. Or even better yet, combine the best of both worlds and use ChirpTracker. You can share sightings fast and still have your data recorded, at the same time you can connect with other birders. While I realize ChirpTracker still has a lot of features to build, I think it's already proved to be a better birding tool for me personally. It doesn't make sense to me to try to make Twitter or Facebook a birding tool when these other great tools are made specifically for our needs.
Just my 2 cents, but otherwise good article about Twitter!
Howdee Gunnar..
You know how I fought using Twitter..You told me I needed to use it..and with your guidance..I did..and I am happy I am using it.
It opens up a whole new world. Thanks muchly!
and to all who read this..please use twitter..then I am sure Gunnar will talk about Chirptracker..but that for another time.
I am willing to help with any questions my twitter name is DawnFine
see u on twitter!
Terre: Thanks. Try to get your group together again. Show them this article. Let me know how you get along.
Vickie: You should be able to find several friends with Seesmic and new ones too. Again, interested in knowing how you do and if this strategy helped you. Also, check Dawn Fine's group on Facebook Birders who Blog, Tweet and Chirp.
Mike: Chirptracker is great for birders and I love it. I have not been as active there as I on Twitter I (see below). But there are far more birders on Twitter than on Chirptracker. Also, the fact that it is not only birding is actually an attraction to the users. In an application such as Seesmic one may monitor not only birding but several things you are interested in. I think Chirptracker will develop into a great application with the geo-location system and maybe also as a rare bird alert system. Twitter may help it to achieve that, because more and more people will end up on Twitter anyway, and may find chirptracker this way. The main reason why I am not as active on Chirptracker is because I can't use Chirptracker as a Twitter client. If CT could be loaded into Seesmic, then CT would become more interesting.
What I like about Twitter is that there are a lot of potential to find new birders here, to recruit new birders and to get them interested. As a blogger, obviously translates as new readers of the blog. I recently started feeding my Twitter account with 10000 birds post. There should have been considerable amount of traffic coming from my retweets to your site.
I challange you Mike. Try the outlined method for two weeks. Just download Seesmic and monitor some keywords for two weeks and you will see that Twitter is far more dynamic and finds you far more stuff that you are interested in than Chirptracker. Chirptracker will be great, when it has some 10000 users around the world. The question is, will it ever? Twitter will get 10000 users interested in birds eventually. It is like my dogma on which is the best item for a beginner birder to get first - binoculars or a point and shoot 24x zoom camera? The second may not be the best to see the birds, but it gives you something more, apart from the photo you have taken. You can use it to photograph other stuff. Likewise Twitter can be used for other things than birding. The trick is for the users to be able to find the raisins - Tweetdeck and Seesmic helps doing that.
Dawn: Once again, thanks for the support. You rock!
Wow, you have 1500 facebook friends? I try to keep that for people I have actually met in person. Everyone else can join The Lone Beader's Facebook page!
I use Facebook to connect with birders. I have a fan page as well for the company, but it is easier to interact with people on their personal pages than on the fan page. I use FB pretty much like Twitter, sharing things that I find, comment on other people's links and status updates and get news on blogs. Using Facebook this way is superior to Twitter cause I will get people as my friends that are actually birders. 95 % or more of my FB friends are birders. On Twitter I have 4000 followers and very small amount of people are birders. There is a considerable number of spammers with get rich schemes. I use Seesmic and Tweetdeck to find the people with relevance.
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