Using Twitter for trendspotting and innovative technologies.

One of the things this committee was formed to do was trendspot and look for innovative technologies. A great way to do this is through the use of Twitter. I know that some of us have twitter accounts and use them for this purpose and to keep in touch with friends/family. For those of you that don’t know or just haven’t used this service I’ll give you a quick explanation.

Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that lets its users send and read messages known as tweets. Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 characters displayed on the author’s profile page and delivered to the author’s subscribers who are known as followers. Senders can restrict delivery to those in their circle of friends or, by default, allow open access. Users can send and receive tweets via the Twitter website, Short Message Service (SMS) or external applications.

Now that we are all on the same page about what twitter is I want to talk about how we could use it. After you have an account you can start following people, businesses, or institutions catered toward what you like. Personally, I follow people from libraryland, technology based businesses such as Wired, TechCrunch, and friends from college. This allows me to have real time updates about things that people have found and would be relevant to what I have interests in. Also, when you find something or have an idea, you can put it out into the Twitterverse and get input, widen your audience exponentially, and quiet honestly possibly cause a trend.

I came across a tweet today by GuyKawasaki that can help you maximize this process through 5 steps. I’m going to list them, but you can go to the site for a more in-depth explanation on each one. http://om.ly/?GAcE

1.Tweet great content 3-4 times a day

2.Reply to conversations (@Strng_Dichotomy)

3.Retweet other people’s content

4.Use search to meet objectives

5.Be easy to retweet and follow

Hope this helps and if it has peaked your interest in this invaluable tool of social media, start an account and add me Strng_Dichotomy. I promise you’ll find loads of amazing stuff.