Jun

How I Use Twitter

I think that Twitter, more than Google, is turning into the best search tool for people in real-time.

I use it to find people who are talking about the same things I’m interested in.

For example, in my account, I’ve saved these searches:

http://search.twitter.com/search?q=minority+women+business

http://search.twitter.com/search?q=green+women+business

And I periodically log in and run the search to network with or follow other people interested in what I’m interested in.

I’ve used CoTweet.com to manage postings from multiple accounts (one for my personal Twitter account, one for my business Twitter account, and others for our client accounts through my web development company).

I use TwitterFeed.com to import the RSS feed from my blogs into my Twitter feed.

I’ve also added a “AddThis.com” button to my blog and website so it’s easy to “tweet” a post.

From this, I am doing better and better at finding other minority women in business and green, success-oriented, fair trade, organic, progressive, sustainable, eco-friendly, and holistic business owners.

I’m also enjoying the conversations, the ability to search by location and by topic, and the blazingly fast transfer of information (for example, a tweet to watch for the International Space Station as it flew by last night, with a link to the correct website).

What do you think? Is Twitter working for you?

You can Find me as Monica S. Flores @monicadear at: http://www.twitter.com/monicadear. I’m happy to connect if you send me a personal message, too.

Twenty Tips for using Twitter You’ve either just started your Twitter account or you’re...
Twitterfried [Reaching Twitter Burn Out] Evaluating your time and efforts expended in social media....
Managing and Protecting your Online Identity These days your Google search results are your resume...
Twitter, is it really what it’s Cracked Up to be? Microblogging, particularly Twitter has revolutionized communication between people as...
Why you want to consider a Facebook strategy Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words. Do...

Categories : Networking, public relations

To learn more about Monica S. Flores, web developer at 10K Webdesign, see her bio for Women on Business or visit her website http://www.10kwebdesign.com. Follow her on Twitter as @monicadear.

4 Comments

aansa
June 7th, 2009 at 1:55 pm

Twitter is good to keep in touch with others but there is so much abuse going on twitter as well. How do you track the messages from people you want to hear from?

DL Okada
June 8th, 2009 at 9:11 am

Thanks for this very useful post! I credit it with getting me to finally relent and start my own twitterings a few days ago. Question about the searches – so do your searches for “minority women business” search in the bio or in the postings? I may consider myself a minority/woman business owner, but I haven’t quite stated that clearly on my twitter accounts. I’ve seen the hashmarks and such, but it seems a little… awkward to me. Any clarifications? Thanks!

Monica S. Flores
June 9th, 2009 at 7:28 pm

Aansa – I typically follow up via e-mail with people I want to keep in touch with.

DL – I think the search goes through both postings and bio, but the bio is only 140 characters too. The hasmarks were popular prior to the search function being beefed up on Twitter, and one would use a # sign to signify something such as #minority #women #business but since the search capability on Twitter has been made more robust, you could jsut as easily do a text only search.

http://Search.twitter.com

In “Advanced” search, you may also find other Twitterers who are *near your location*. Use the Near this Place and Within this Distance search fields.

http://search.twitter.com/advanced

So, for example, where I live there are a few Twitterers but the tool allows us to find each other, then we can organize and create our own “meetup” in person.