Before you say you have no need for Twitter, read this post.  There are 288 million monthly active users on Twitter and 500 million Tweets are sent per day.  Surprisingly, most of my friends and family are NOT on Twitter.  They say they have no use for it.  So who are these people who are tweeting?

Well, I am one of those 288 Million!  I have discovered how to use Twitter to my benefit.

Like most social media outlets, there is a lot of junk out there.  You just need to know how to use it and how it can benefit you.

Here are some simple examples of how you can use Twitter to your benefit.

Reaching Out to Corporations Through Twitter

Twitter is one of the easiest ways to contact a company to get instant customer service.  Often times, it is the only way as many companies don’t advertise a phone number.

Because Twitter is so public, larger companies have employees that do nothing but monitor and respond to customers through Social Media.  It’s to our benefit because we hear back so quickly.

My personal AOL email was down.  Of course there is no phone number to call so I turned to Twitter.

AOL asked that we follow each other so that we could then Direct Message to get this solved.  A Direct Message allows you to continue your conversation in private.

On a lighter note, here is another example.  I recently bought a delicious Harissa sauce called Mina by Casablanca Foods.  I was telling my uncle about it as he loves all things spicy.  He asked where he could buy it in Florida.  I tweeted the company.  Within a couple of hours I had my response.

Local News

News first appears on Twitter because it’s instantaneous.  As soon as a story breaks, there’s a tweet about it.  For that reason, I follow my local newspaper and a local news channel.  They tweet all day long their highlights.  I can quickly learn about local news by skimming the tweets and clicking on stories that are of interest.  You can get an update on traffic, weather or anything that is happening around your city.

National Newspapers and Magazines

I follow many national newspapers and magazines and get to see their daily highlights.  You can follow a host of publications and see snippets of articles.  You can save ones that are of interest by marking them as favorites or read them then and there.  The articles are just a click away.

 Sporting Events

My husband and I are big Ohio State Football Fans.  As you know there are many commercials during a game.  During that downtime, I often turn to Twitter and use the Hashtag for that game.

In the instance below, it was the Ohio State Buckeyes playing the Oregon Ducks.  My husband told me as soon as the game started that he thought the referee looked like Bob Newhart.  Well, it was all over twitter and someone quickly put together a picture comparing the two.

My local newspaper informed us the following morning that Bob Newhart was even aware of it and shared a link to Mr. Newhart’s tweet.

Tweeting and Conferences

If you are attending a conference, most likely there will be a hashtag for it.  All attendees going to the conference can follow the tweets with that Hashtag.  It becomes a conversation for all those involved.  And it’s a quick way to get the word out to a group of people without having to put everyone’s address in an email.

Celebrity Figures and Twitter

I featured Lidia Bastianich in my blog post this week.  She tweeted Grazie to me!  I’ll admit it – It’s fun to hear back from someone so well-known, even if it is their assistant sending the tweet.   The perk was that she shared my post with all of her 23,000 followers!

On a more serious note, you can follow your Governor, Senators and State Reps and voice your opinions.

Television Viewing

You can follow tv channels that you are interested in whether it be HGTV, Discovery, History or any other channel out there.  Their tweets will keep you up to date on new shows.

These are just some examples of how I use Twitter.  There is so much more to it; It’s a complex social media outlet and everyone uses it differently.  Personally, if nothing else, I would have it solely to reach out to customer service departments.

Are you interested in Twitter?  If so, let me know in the comments below and I ‘ll write another post explaining how it all works, hashtags and all.  The lingo may seem confusing but once you get the hang of it, it can be a great tool.

If you already use Twitter, I would love to know what you like best about it.