Beam me up, Scotty, there’s intelligent life at Twitter
By: Karin Housley
I’m going crazy. Twitter crazy. I alluded to Twitter.com a couple of weeks ago, but I’m going to dive in and explain further, because if you’re not tweeting, you’re missing out. Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?
So why would anyone care what you’re doing, or better yet, why would you care what anyone else is doing? Odd thing is, once you start twittering, suddenly, you find yourself caring.
Here’s how it works. You go to Twitter.com and sign up for a username and password. It’s free. Get a username and you’re in. You can be StillwaterChick or ponyhockey4me or ilovetigerwoods…your choice. I was very creative. KarinHousley. Once in, you find people that you want to “follow” to see what they’re doing at the moment. Every wonder what your sister in Atlanta Grand Rapids
To start out, follow people that tweet (post what they’re doing) a lot. Start with Ashton Kutcher. Last week Ashton uploaded a photo of his wife Demi steaming the wrinkles out of his tux that he was going to wear to Bruce Willis’ wedding. She was steaming in her bathing suit (no pun intended), to which Ashton tweeted along with the candid photo, “Shhhhhh, don’t tell wifey.” Those that followed Ashton knew something big was going on even before the paparazzi. Tonight Ashton commented on the bottle of ’86 Mouton Rothschild he was drinking as he sent a picture of it from their dinner table. Taylor Swift was at her brother’s Honer (sic) Society speech, and Kate Larson from Stillwater
So what’s the excitement? Why do I care about Ashton, Taylor or Kate?
Because you get to be in a lot of places, live, without really having to be there. Whenever you’re doing something cool or fun, update it. Then you follow people that you think are doing something cool or that you’re interested in. You input your interests when you get a username. (You’ll get the hang of it more once you get started.) After that, search for people with similar interests and follow them. Put in keywords like Stillwater Norway
For example, this weekend was tweet heaven for me. First, I was at the UMD Bulldog hockey game. I updated everyone who followed with the score and a picture as soon as it happened. Now if you were at your Bunko game and were wondering how the Dogs were doing, you could quickly check your Twitter (either on your phone or on a computer), and voila, you could see my live updates and photos, and you’d know the score instantly without having to wait for the news.
My craziness got worse. On Sunday afternoon, when Tiger Woods was playing in the Arnold Palmer Invitational and my husband wasn’t able to see it live, I updated him (and everyone who was following) on the status of the tournament. My tweets looked like this as I kept taking pictures of the television screen.
Here’s the scoreboard – just finished up at 17. <insert picture 1>
On the 18th, tee shots off. Johnson's - good. O'hair - good. Woods - kicks butt.
Second shots on 18: Johnson - on green. O’hair- on green. Woods - kicks butt on green 12 ft from hole. It's a par 4.
Edge of my seat. Can't handle it. To refrigerator I go. <insert picture 2>
O’hair misses putt. Johnson putts out for par. If Tiger makes this birdie...he wins.
Tiger did it!!! Tiger wins! <insert picture 3>
My twittering got even worse that night when the Bemidji State St. Louis
So how does Twitter work for business people? If mortgage rates drop by a quarter point and you’re in the business, you better let your people know. If you’re having a nickel wine sale (ahem, Haskell’s – starts April 1st), you better let your people know. If you’re Michele Bachmann and you want to tell us what you’re going to talk about on Fox tonight, Twitter it. (And that she does.)
Call me crazy, but I think it’s time you checked Twitter out.
By the way, I’m going along with five friends to the Frozen Four in Washington , D.C.
Karin Housley is realtor in the St. Croix Valley
