Posted by Marta Turek

Remember when all your friends were jumping on the Facebook bandwagon but you resolutely held your ground until the nagging became unbearable? With a sense of resignation and personal betrayal for losing the battle, you joined the hordes of millions and decided to “re-befriend” the long lost friends of school with whom you have had absolutely zero contact for years, in order not to look like the only loser on Facebook with 5 friends.

Time has passed and you’ve made your peace with Facebook only for yet another social media networking tool to hit the market. This one’s called Twitter and it has been around for a while. It has reached the point of popular adoption, with a growth rate of over 1,382% between February 2008 – February 2009.

This time, it’s not really about your friends but rather the act of ‘following’ people, some of whom you have met but the majority of which who are industry thought leaders, celebrities or quite simply complete strangers. So, you ‘follow’ these people and in the interim read their 140 character messages that appear in real-time, whilst sharing your own 140 character tips, thoughts, news, gems of wisdom, arbitrary daily occurrences, personal schedule, interesting links, emotions, traffic reports, industry events etc. all in the hope that someone will ‘follow’ you. Again, ‘less is more’ is not a common mantra seen on Twitter. One of the goals appears to be to collect ‘followers’ and if you’re Ashton Kutcher, once you reach a million followers, Oprah will cover the story. So, as you can see, this ‘followers’ thing is a pretty big deal.

So, do you really need to be on Twitter?

It’s All Relative

If you work for Zappos, Twitter is fairly paramount, given CEO Tony Hsieh has revolutionised the manner in which a CEO of a prominent online company interacts with his audience.

On the other hand, if you work in a specialised field, for example as a geophysicist, the networking circle is so narrow that online interaction itself is scarce and beyond this, the highly technical nature of the field, including the jargon-loaded terminology does not lend itself to a social networking environment. Allow me to demonstrate a potential Tweet:

“Made progress on p-wave anisotropic measurements of the Cascadian subduction zone at the transition from the lithosphere to the astenosphere”

Moving right along.

The line becomes a little bit blurry when in a position of dependence, for example the job hunt. It is difficult to ascertain how the hiring company shall perceive the use of Twitter by the potential candidate. This, at the commencement of the recruiting process will depend entirely on the HR Director. If interested in social media networking, a candidate’s presence on Twitter may be an unwritten prerequisite in successfully proceeding to the next stage of the hiring process. However, if the HR Director falls into a more traditional realm in which social media remains a subject that is being tentatively explored, then an active Twitter profile may go unrecognised.

On a side note, if you are in job hunt mode, and are looking to secure a position that in some form or manner involves an understanding of the online marketing industry, you should utilise the social media platforms that are causing a stir in the online market – Twitter being one of them.

If the words ‘social media’ fall anywhere in your job title, it would be advisable to Tweet and perhaps write something insightful for your clients, rather than just sharing news on the shoes you purchased or the restaurant you are currently frequenting – unless your clients are supposed to meet you there!

So, if you think that Twitter is just pointless babble and have no desire to join the noise, do not feel pressured to do so. Having said that, it is difficult to derive value from something that you have not yet tried yourself, so before making any hasty conclusions, the only way to answer ‘To Tweet or not to Tweet?’ is to jump on and give it a shot. Unless you’re a geophysicist, of course.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, September 10th, 2009 at 8:30 am and is filed under Uncategorized. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

About the Author: Marta Turek has been involved in the Search Engine Marketing (SEM) industry since 2007. She spent her first 2 years working at an SEM agency in Melbourne, Australia. It was in that time, working closely with clients that her passion developed for educating people and helping them gain a broader understanding of SEM. An advocate of SEO standards, she shares her perspective on her blog: http://semstreetcred.com.