My Twitter Tale

If you would have told me a year ago that I would be involved in something called "Twitter" a powerful Social Media Tool that will allow you to personally and professionally make contacts, relationships and friendships, I would have simply said "you are crazy!"

This journey started around February of 2009, I was hearing all this stuff about "Twitter" and 140 characters, short and sweet, get to the point conversations, etc, and thought to myself, this is just glorified texting. My curiosity still got the best of me and I thought "I will just take a quick look and that will be that, "ya, right"".

I entered Twitterville very cautiously, looked around and thought this is harmless, I will set-up an account (which I must say for a non-techie like myself was super-easy) and send a few "tweets". So send a few "tweets" I did (actually I think I am up to about 2,100) and something started happening. I started to "follow" people and they started to "follow-me" back and then we started "tweeting" with each other and then we started to realize that we all had a lot in common....this was the "moment" for me! I realized that this wasn't just having conversations to kill time, I (we) were actually building relationships.

I started to "tweet" more about my business and some of life's silliness and realized that there were so many people out there similar to me, running small businesses while trying to manage life and family. Is this "Twitter Therapy" not sure but it was nice to "tweet" with these people and have some common ground. This is one of the wonders of "Twitter" (sort of like the law of attraction!?), you choose who you want to follow and you also choose who can follow you! I have found that because of this you will start to see that you will have a fair amount in common with those people in your group.

A few months have gone by and I am "tweeting" on a regular basis, staying in contact, sharing information, learning things about others along the way and it was decided, let's all have a "tweet-up". A "tweet-up"?, this is what "tweeters" do when they all decide to get together in a common place to meet and greet in person.

So off I go to my first "tweet-up", I am feeling a bit nervous (kind of like the new kid in the playground) wondering what this is going to be like. So you get there and start looking round the room hoping you will recognize someone that matches that little tiny picture on their profile. Success, I have spotted some and walk over and say Hi, I'm Tina and they look at you kind of funny and then you give your "twitter name" and they say omg I thought that was you, etc.

So let's take stock of the events, you have talked with these people on "twitter" you then go to a group "tweet-up" and start talking in person only to find the real power of "twitter". You feel like you have known these people for quite some time and they really are genuine people with similar interests to yours and this does not feel awkward, if anything, they are now becoming friends.

I am very proud and honestly a bit surprised to say that I have found the power of "twitter"...

Article written by Tina Gilbert, Owner & Founder of TheWomenPreneur.com and LusciousBubbles.com and is a proud "Twit"