Twitter is all about listening

Twitter is difficult to use because it's so easy to use. Once you've created an account, your Twitter page allows you to update your status and watch a scrolling list of status updates from your friends (in Twitterese, the people you are following). That's it. I ( @jcatcw) do my updates, and I read yours. Nothing to it.

Well, except to answer the why bother question. Two years ago, professionals disparagingly referred to Twitter as a place to mention what they had for lunch (well, at least this one did). That's something that, of course, we wouldn't do in our professional guise. There has been a sea change in that attitude, but when and why?

I started to think Twitter might be something more than messaging with friends and family in August 2007, when a colleague interviewed members of the Los Angeles Fire Department (@lafd) about their use of Twitter to keep their community informed. Those scrolling messages started to resemble police-band radio in text format. Now almost two years later, many more professional uses have emerged.

Given the simplicity of Twitter, you wouldn't think that it would take 241 pages to explain how to post a 140-character message, but Sarah Milstein and Tim O'Reilly put those pages to good use in The Twitter Book, aka #TwitterBook. I found a few great tips that I didn't know before, and I deepened my understanding of how to use Twitter, in no small part thanks to the screenshots that take up half of those pages. After you've gone through the book once somewhat closely, skimming the screenshots may be all that's necessary to get a quick refresher.

According to the authors, the crux of the matter is to use Twitter to form communities. You can start by following people you already know. As the book points out, this can be more important than it sounds. For example, I might not generally care that my brother, who is 2,000 miles away, is on his way to the hardware store. But if he mentions buying a substantial quantity of roofing materials, I might call to find out about that last big storm.

But you'll also want to listen in on topics that interest you, rather than using Twitter as a daily diary of your activities. While the first part of the book concentrates on the basics, the next few chapters focus on listening and conversing.

Begin from the beginning

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