I like Twitter, finally.

As a social media manager for Rainman, and embracer of all things social media related, I was surprisingly hesitant to adopt Twitter. Initially I was more than annoyed by the #, RT, FF, @, and 140 character limit on Twitter. I love Facebook, love blogging, but Twitter really lacked the two things I love most- photos and in depth information, or so I thought.

After looking into Twitter and creating a personal account I began to follow a few of my friends, a few of my favorite TV shows, local organizations I like, and a few of my favorite bloggers. For the first few months I simply watched everyone on Twitter, read tweets, and unintentionally figured out how everything worked, simply by watching others.

Not long ago I caught myself wanting to chime in on a few hot topics, and gave it a try. I was surprised to see how instantaneous Twitter responses can be. In mere minutes I had answers to questions, more information on topics, and could find an entire web of conversation developed around my desired topic. At this point I found myself hesitantly in love with the hashtag. 

I have also found that Twitter is one of the quickest ways to get news, weather, or really any information. For example, when the news of the death of Bin Laden broke, I actually saw the topic trending on Twitter before they started giving reports on CNN. That is pretty amazing.

I have also started to use Twitter in a few ways that I would have never imagined, such as finding recipes. Despite my initial thoughts that twitter was a limited text message type forum, Twitter is actually full of tweets with tiny urls to everything you would find on Facebook or a blog. For example, I just read my timeline and found recipes for 3 different dishes in less than a minute,  found out it was finally raining at my parents house back home, that it might rain again here today, a new recipe for canned tomatoes, an organic solution to the aphids eating my garden, and what Hollywood is up to.

 I like to think of Twitter as my source for headline news, with options to find out more information via tiny urls, or view photos attached to tweets. Twitter is also really nice because you can control the amount of time you spend on it- you don’t have to log in daily to make an update that’s grammatically correct, perfect, or even all that detailed; you can simply use it as an information source and take a backseat to conversations going on around you.

Amanda Kuban

Social Media Manager