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!
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