Twitter-cism on the latest social media fad

I’ll admit it: at first blush, I was attracted to Twitter.

Its colourful, fresh vector design layouts appealed to the creative in me, and the short, one-sentence updates free for viewing to all on the worldwide web appealed to the minute attention-seeking part of me that (judging by the content of most of the tweets on Twitter) I think is in all of us, whether we’d like to admit it or not.

But then, thankfully, that moment passed.

Andy Warhol said in the future, everyone will be famous for 15 minutes. But in today’s world of electronic social media, it often seems like everyone is trying to draw attention to the importance of themselves for way more than 15 minutes.

For example, right now I’m eating cinnamon toast. Does anyone care that I’m eating cinnamon toast? Or, more importantly, should anyone care? Of course not.

Unfortunately, the vast majority of Twitter users that I have seen use Twitter to do just that. It reminds me of a cheeky photo Kimberlee posted on her blog: never before have so many people with so little to say said so much.

As I mentioned in class today, up until now I didn’t have a Twitter account for the very fact that I know I’m not important enough to broadcast my daily (or hourly, or minutely, or secondly) activities to the world (then again - is anyone this important, really?) and for the fact that other people are using it in this way.

So I posed the question: how can Twitter be used other than as a “status update” tool? (Maybe I should have said: is Twitter meant to be used other than as a “status update” tool because now that I think of it, the very fact that Twitter is based around the question “What are you doing right now?” (since changed to “What’s happening?”) confirms my suspicions.)

Kenton assured me it can (still getting back to me on the “how” part), if you know how to use it. If that’s the case, then looking around, there’s lots of people (including me!) who don’t know how.

I’m not saying I can’t see the potential – I agree, it is there. As Case Stevens said on his blog: “you have personal access to anyone using Twitter and all people [on] Twitter are VERY responsive!” I haven’t tried them out yet, but those hashtags look powerful, and for those in marketing, advertising, public relations, etc. that rely on public feedback, Twitter is definitely an instant way of getting it.

But, looking around once again, the vast majority of Twitter users (including me!) don’t have such a cause – hence my second question: should everyone have a Twitter account?

I’m now on Twitter because it was required for my public relations course, and I’m more than willing to hear some suggestions as to how I can use my newfound media tool in a way that is meaningful.

Otherwise I fear I’m just going to become yet another mundane person tweeting about eating cinnamon toast, hoping someone will notice.