ANZ 23 Mobile Things - Thing 1: Twitter

I've been using Twitter for a reasonable amount of time, but I'll admit it took me a while to be convinced that I had a purpose for it.

I find with any new technologies or tools, I might have a play around with it but if I don't think it will have any use for me - then I won't continue to use it.

Twitter was a bit like that for me.  I had Facebook to keep in touch with friends and colleagues - what would I need Twitter for?

However, I continued to "lurk" on Twitter and was very much an observer rather than a participator for a very long time.

I discovered Twitter was good to follow events that my fellow professionals were attending.  And it was especially good to provide information during natural disasters.

The main thing holding me back from participating was thinking that if I tweeted something, it would be stupid.  I didn't know how to shorten what I wanted to say into the required limit.  What are these things called hash tags # and how do you know which one to use?  What does RT, MT and HT mean??  How do I send a message to someone without sending it to the Twitter universe??

So you can see I had heaps of Twitter "fears" to overcome.

Then one day I went to an event and I thought, I should really do my professional duty and share what is happening/being said at this event.  So I started to Tweet.  So what if my tweets weren't that good?  I was learning.  I asked one of my fellow professionals who had been using Twitter for a long time what the hash tag was for the event and off I went.

By the end of the event, I had found more fellow professionals to follow and I had even had some of my tweets re-tweeted (I always feel a warm feeling when that happens).

I'm still not what I would consider a professional twitterer (you see I don't even know the correct term to use - tweeter twitterer twit....), but I'm out there sharing and interacting.

I now regularly participate in online twitter discussions, especially Read, Watch, Play.  And I'm starting to get better at using my tablet to tweet (overcoming how to provide links in a tweet, getting used to the smaller keyboard, etc).  I have even managed to open a Storify account and capture Tweets from events I attend.

With all that said, my library is looking at starting a Twitter account and I'm not sure I think we should go there.

I've just joined the Australian Library and Information Associations (ALIA) Social Media Group (@aliasocialmed) to find out more about how libraries are successfully using Twitter as an "interaction" and or "marketing" tool.

I look forward to discovering and learning more about Twitter.