The Power of Twitter....

I have been fascinated with Twitter since it first became popular. I am in awe of people who can say very little, but have a huge impact. It's the power of a few well chosen words, moving mountains, which makes me totally envious. I am just about to ramp up my presence on Twitter, since I have just bought an IPhone. We will not discuss, at present, why it has taken me all these years to get a phone that can do everything - another time :)

Since Twitter is in my sights, or hands, as it were, I have been reading posts on, or about, this social media platform. Mashable.com posted to my FB wall - 10 Moments on Twitter. It's a fascinating collection of tweets, which show the impact of the medium and the word. Here are a few:

1. The power of the one word tweet. I remember reading about James Buck's arrest in Egypt April 10, 2008. He was able to get out a one-word tweet "Arrested," before the authorities seized him. His friends back in the US were, as result of the tweet, able to contact government officials in the US, who in turn, contacted the American Embassy in Egypt and Buck was freed the next day. His tweet that day was, "Free."

I have always been fascinated by people who can say just the right word at just the right time. I will send a few one word tweets.

2. The power of breaking news. The man on the street, with an IPhone and a Twitter account, is the next roving journalist. The person who posted that a plane had gone down in the Hudson River in 2009 and the passenger, Janis Krums, on a nearby ferry, who took a picture of the rescue attempts, will go down in history.

Now, I don't plan on being in too many wild and crazy places, but exciting things have been known to happen in Toronto. If you don't count Rob Ford, which the rest of the world finds wild and crazy, then I may have to wait a bit, but what's a few more years in a life span. Then again I have to be careful what I wish for. You wouldn't have wanted to have been on that plane!

Light a candle; say a prayer and tweet!

3. The power of the celebrity. Mashable notes that when Oprah joined Twitter, internet traffic increased by 24%. Oprah has 21 million followers. OK, I have 48 followers with only 350 tweets over 5 years. I'll let you know how it goes!!

4. Marketing. Mashable mentions a few marketing campaigns that didn't go as planned. McDonalds thought that they could connect with customers by having them post warm and fuzzy stories about their McD's experiences. As it turned out, the fuzz was more about the bad food and service than anything positive. However, kudos did go to the Mr. Christie's Oreo crew that tweeted during a black out of the Super Bowl game, "You can still dunk in the dark." The tweet came complete with a picture of an Oreo cookie. Now I ask you, how many people watch the game eating Oreos and drinking hot chocolate? You still have to give them credit, though, for quick thinking.

Given that I market knitting supplies, I guess I could wait for an opportunity to say something like, "You can still tink in the dark." I'd have to watch that spell checker doesn't change tink to think. I guess you could still think in the dark and tweet too, I presume. Again you would have to be in the right place, at the right time!! For a platform that uses just a few words, it still uses at lot of time to get things just right.

The picture - when the power is out we still have candles and now I have Twitter :)

Have a wonderful day!!