Monica McNamara's Ocean City Blog

Do You Use Twitter?

I am always curious how individuals in different walks of life utilize things. Anything…from a new lawn mower to a great new wok that they are finding exciting recipes for, to a super high end stereo system, to a not so little tiny application called Twitter.

I had lunch the other day with our oldest son, and he brought a friend of his. This young man is a newly minted medical doctor. He’s extremely intelligent, motivated and who I would consider to be a very savvy individual.  He has a cell phone and a computer. Interestingly enough in the course of our conversation, he asked me the question, “So what is Twitter? And why is everyone talking about it”?

Now I am no expert, and just because I occasionally chime in with a tweet or two, I really don’t consider myself that well versed. But I gave it a go to explain the Twitter mania.

I gave him the Wikipedia definition of Twitter… free social networking and micro blogging service that enables its users’ to send and receive updates from each other known as Tweets.

He looked at me kind of strangely and said why would you want to do that? Well, I said, you might what to know what your friends are doing without calling them. You probably have friends/family and business associates all over the world, and would want to know what they are doing, stay in touch with them, or ask them for their help or advice.  

Twitter is like asking someone what are you doing right now, and in 140 characters or less you get an answer. Or you tell those that matter to you what you are doing right now. I told him if you sign up for Twitter, you will see that Twitter posts look a lot like blogs, but with very little content in the message, so it makes it easy and quick to stay in touch. 

Each page is personal and has updates from your chosen friends.  You can look up to see who you know is using Twitter, and then you can “follow” their updates to see what is happening in their day to day life.  I told him that you find out fun facts about others. Like your buddy in Maryland is reading this great new book, or your old college roommate who moved to Virginia is now getting married, and so on. 

For business, I told him, I use Twitter to talk about my latest new listings and blog posts, and easily interact with my customers.  Staying in touch and communicating with those that I work with is critical, and my clients love the personal interaction.

He scratched his head, looked at me quizzically, and said, “I think I am beginning to get it”.  I smiled to myself. I was happy I was able to help him understand “What is Twitter”….. 

Then I said, “Now if you want to Follow Me on Twitter, just click on this link and you will receive my updates”.   J