Freelance Writers: Did You Twitter Today?

Popular trends online in 2009 are social networking and anything else related to Web 2.0, a label used to describe advanced internet technologies such as blogging, RSS feeds, and member communities that users join to connect with other people who may have similar interests. In fact, according to a report from Nielsen Online (http://www.nielsen-online.com/pr/pr_090309.pdf), social networking and blogging have become more popular than sending email. More than two-thirds (67%) of the global online community now goes online to visit social networks and blogs.

At this moment, Twitter is the social networking darling, with hundreds of people joining daily. Recent data show that in one month, the number of Twitter users grew by 33% (http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2009/03/09/the-influence-of-twitter). If you've heard of Twitter, but discarded it as irrelevant, think again.

As a microblogging platform, Twitter's free service enables users to send out short snippets of no more than 140 characters. These updates, called Tweets, go to your followers and also appear in the Twitter timeline. Twitter began as a vehicle through which friends, family, and coworkers could communicate and stay connected by exchanging quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing? Twitter has evolved as Twitter users learned that every Tweet counts (and nobody wants to hear about what you're eating for lunch). Today, you'll find more valuable content and less useless information about what someone's doing at one particular moment in time.

What can writers of any genre get out of Twitter?

• Traffic:  Use your Tweets to drive prospective clients to your Web site, where they can read your bio and see samples of your work. You do have a Web site, don't you?
• Connections:  Use Twitter as a tool to connect with others in your industry or related industries while increasing awareness of your personal brand. You never know who might be reading your Tweets. As with other social networking sites for professionals like Biznik or LinkedIn, social networking contacts often lead to other connections that can generate new freelance clients or employment opportunities. To get Twitter followers and make connections, you need to follow people. Use the "advanced search" function to find Twitter users in your areas of interest, follow them, and comment on their posts using the "@replies" or "direct message" function.
• Resources:  Twitter offers you a steady stream of ideas, links, resources, and tips. Follow people in your areas of interest and they will lead you to resources you might not have found yourself. I found the earlier link to the Nielsen Online report through a Tweet.
• Skills:  The challenge of Twitter is to write a Tweet using no more than 140 characters. In the Twitter world, you need to write tight or forget it, which gives you an opportunity to hone your writing skills.

What should you Tweet about? I've found the best way to optimize Twitter is to become a filter, teaching my followers mini-lessons about medical writing and updating them on topics of interest in the field. My goal is to provide my followers with information they can use. For example, once a week I send out a Tweet defining a medical writing acronym. I also Tweet about medical writing resources and websites where medical writers can find demographic data, disease-state information, and much more. You can follow me at http://twitter.com/cyndyandbrian.

Keep in mind that Twitter is a very "noisy" place. By that I mean the volume of Tweets is enormous. As more people follow you, the volume increases substantially. Since you can Tweet from your computer or your mobile phone, some users send dozens of Tweets each day, which only adds to the noise. I limit the number of daily Tweets I send and will quickly unfollow someone who, in my opinion, Tweets too much. The noise level does have an up-side: you can repeat your Tweets, since your followers will probably miss some of your updates, given the number of Tweets they need to filter through.

A variety of free applications are available to increase the functionality of Twitter. With Tweetlater (www.tweetlater) you can set up keyword alerts to notify you when someone Tweets about a specific word or phrase, schedule Tweets to appear automatically when you can't do it personally, and automatically follow people who follow you. Twellow (www.twellow.com) is an application that allows you to track selected people in your specific niche or business. You can even track Federal Express, UPS, and DHL shipments at http://twitter.com/TrackThis.

In March, 2009, Twitter launched four levels of premium services that cost between $5 and $250 per month and offer additional services, such as increased character limits (up to 500), an automatic spell-check function, and a so-called Twitter Concierge that will send out Tweets for you when you can't. Whether users will flock to these paid services as they did to Twitter's free service, only time will tell.

Think you're too old to Twitter? Not in the least. One interesting characteristic of the social networking and blogging community is its diversity in terms of the age of its audience. During 2008, the biggest growth in visitors to "Member Community" web sites around the world was seen among those in the 35- to 49-year-old age group (http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2009/03/09/social-sites-surpass-email-usage ). That's more than 11.3 million visitors!