While it’s not my full time job I’ve been asked to speak to groups of customers about Social Media and Twitter on occasion. Some are excited with the potential to reach people like they’ve never been able to reach them before. Instant access to people all over the world that might be interested in what you are. People you never knew existed. The possibilities are limitless.

I do however find that quite a few are turned off and say “I don’t get it, why would anyone want to know what I’m doing every minute of the day?” Truthfully, they don’t. No one wants to know that you just woke up or ate a taco. If Twitter was really only that, it would be useless. Twitter is a gold mine of near real time information. You will find news on Twitter before you can google it or your favorite anchor has time to broadcast it. It’s no wonder why the print industry is struggling. It’s truthfully almost scary how fast news passes on Twitter.

“What should I say?” If you don’t know what to say, don’t. Get an account and follow people in your industry or by your interest. Find out what they are doing on Twitter. They may be using it in a way you never thought of. Use a site like http://wefollow.com to find people that have registered themselves in directories of topics you are interested in. Do you like Apple? They have over a million people registered under that tag. Do you have Diabetes or maybe a child who does? They have over 100,000 people under this tag. There is a wealth of information on Twitter. All of it for free. I personally tweet Mac related news and tips. I follow mostly people who do the same. Being somewhat shy myself I am surprised by the relationships I have made with strangers. I have found a community of like minded people in which we can discuss topics relative to us. The bottom line is EVERYONE can benefit from Twitter, it’s not necessary that you have to participate.