Do You Tweet?

Are you familiar with Twitter? I know, it is one of the social media darlings that might be overlooked for the benefits that you can gain from it. 

What? You can gain something from Twitter? 

Yes, I think you can. 

A tweet is a 140 character message. So, let’s say that you are watching a hockey game and you want to express your excitement or disappointment about what is happening in the game. Now, you could go to Facebook and post about the game. Let me be the first to tell you that your friends don’t really appreciate this. I hate to hurt your feelings but Facebook is not really the ideal place for this. 

BUT TWITTER IS –

Yes, Twitter with the 140 characters is just great for you to make shout outs to your favorite team. One of the things about Twitter is that when you tweet about your team, you can add a hashtag (another word for the # sign) and that will classify your tweet by subject. Then anyone interested in the subject “#gohawks” can see your tweet. It is like watching the game with people all over the country.  The best part?  Those people want to hear your cheers during the game.

What does this have to do with diabetes?

Well, just as there is a “#gohawks” subject, there are “#diabetes” subjects. You can use twitter to see about current articles and research on diabetes. You can find out what the diabetes online community (DOC) is talking about currently. Since most companies and writers these days will tweet when there is news. People will tweet when  they see something they think should be shared. 

The fastest growing demographic on Twitter is the 55-64 year age group.

Twitter can be a great tool to help you find out information or find others that have the same interests as you. When you see a tweet by someone who you find interesting, you can “follow” that person. When you “follow” them, then when they post something to Twitter, it will come up on your feed. If you decide that you are not interested in them anymore then you can simply “unfollow” them. 

But how to start?

I could go through and explain it step by step but I found that it has been done by others and I am going to refer you to one of those guides. Please click here to get instructions on “How to Use Twitter.” This guide will start you off and you can investigate the world of twitter. 

WARNING - 

I am sure that you know already that not everything that you read on the internet is factual. If you are considering making any changes based on something you read, ask yourself two questions. 

        1. Does this make sense?

  2. Does this sound too good to be true?

If it does not make sense to you or it sounds too good to be true, then don’t do it. Ask your doctor. Really, ask your doctor. Diabetes is a serious disease and you don’t want to go off on someone else’s flights of fancy with your health.

 

Always regard everything you read on the internet with a certain amount of cynicism. (Except, of course what I write…) 

If you are really interested in Twitter, there is a new book by one of the founders.  The title is Things a Little Bird Told Me and the author is Biz Stone. (If you want to read a review that I wrote, you can find it here.) 

I suggest that you take a look at Twitter if you haven’t already. You may find it to be more fun and interesting than you would have expected. 

You are welcome to follow me @9inchplate.  

Thanks for reading!