My New Best Friend Twitter

I love you Twitter, oh yes I do, I love you Twitter, this much is true!!!  I was never a cheer leader but I think this is how that cheer starts.  I have fallen in deep love with Twitter.  I am in mini-blogger heavan.  The good news is you can love it too.  It is official, I have been using Twitter for 10 weeks now and I have learned a lot in that short amount of time.  So I thought I would tell you why I love my new best friend Twitter.

• I have met so many new friends, as of today 436 to be exact. I love to read their tweets and I hope they love mine.  I find myself gravitating to those who tweet about personal growth, inspiration or business.
• You are limited to 140 characters.  Short and sweet and I love that.  Nothing long winded and it is a challenge sometimes to limit those thoughts but so much fun to figure it out.  
• RT's - Retweets!  I love RT's - I actually retweet a lot of information.  When I find something someone else has said and that I like, I will quickly RT it.  When you retweet you are giving recognition to the person who originally tweeted it.  It feels awesome when someone gives you credit for your own thoughts or work and it really feels great to give someone the credit and kudos they deserve for their work.  Note - if you want to be retweeted try to keep your tweets to 120 or less characters to give the RT'r the room to add your user name when RT'ing.
• # - called a hashtag.  Usually tweets are individual thoughts that sometimes start a conversation but if you would like to create the community feel for a topic you can include it with a hashtag and watch the conversation unfold.  For example, one hashtag I follow is #LCTwitizens.  Just put that in the Twitter search box and you will see the stream of conversation.
• Using Twitter you can easily share files, photos and video as well as much more.  You can simply type the URL in your tweet (using a URL shortner if necessary)
• These last two I have not used personally but have watched them work for others.  First you can raise money for worthy causes.  The sheer size of twitters audience makes this possible.  Recently there was a Tweetathon to raise money to fight child hunger in the United States called 12for12K.  The idea was to raise $12,000 in 12 hours by passing along tweets and getting donations.  They actually ended up with a little over $14,000, a true success story.  Second if you are in business you can use Twitter as a customer service tool.  It is designed to have immediate results which is exactly what customer service should be.  You can resolve customers issue quickly with a personal touch and hopefully, if you are doing it right, build positive brand recognition at the same time.

These are just a few of the things I love about Twitter.  I could go on and on but won't.  OK maybe later but for now I will end with this - Twitter is a fast paced, I agree, but for me with a little focus I can see the huge potential for individuals and businesses alike.