5 Alternate Ways to Use Twitter

June 10, 2010 by  
Filed under Twitter Marketing Tips

When you ask someone who doesn’t use Twitter why they abstain, you’ll most likely hear, “There’s no point”, “I’m on enough networks already”, or my least favourite, “I don’t need to hear what anybody had for breakfast.” Sigh.

These are all obviously silly reasons but they do show something important: Twitter has a learning curve. It’s not evident right away what you’re supposed to do. In an effort to help persuade new users to using Twitter, I’ve outlined these five out-of-the-box ways to use Twitter that don’t include talking about breakfast.

1. Newsfeed

A great way to start using Twitter is to replace your RSS reader or whatever way you currently digest news. Your local news channels and newspapers will have a twitter account to keep you in the know, as well as national and international news sources. There are also people who tweet only articles and news from specific niches like web design. You can take it one step forward and use Lists to organize your sources, offering you personalized niche-specific newsfeeds.

2. Find a Job

Twitterers like to help others. That’s why if I was looking for a job here in Ottawa I’d follow @ottawatweetjobs, and if I wanted to land a freelance gig working with WordPress I’d follow @wordpressjobs. Your area and niche will have people tweeting opportunities as well, and there’s always @monsterkaw, @simplyhired, and @microjobs as well. (For more specific accounts to follow, check out Find a Job on Twitter by Mashable.)

3. Bookmarking

After you start getting all these resources in your Twitter stream you’re going to realize you don’t have time to read it all! That’s ok, just mark it as a “favourite” and read it later. You can also favourite your own tweets, so if you see something elsewhere you’d like to find later just tweet about it and favourite it.

4. Find Deals and Coupons

Everybody likes saving money (I’d hope), and Twitter can help you do that. There are lots of accounts that only tweet sales and coupons, such as @fatwalletdeals, @slickdeals, and @coupontweet.

5. Stalk Celebrities

I don’t know what people’s obsession with celebrities is, but Twitter marks the first service where celebrities and us “common falk” mingle and converse together. Try a search for your favourite celebrity, comic, artist, musician, etc. and I’ll bet you’ll find them tweeting away. P.S: This one you might end up hearing what somebody ate for breakfast.

Now everybody might not think Twitter is for them, but I can guarantee anyone could find usefulness in using at least one of these methods. So next time somebody says Twitter’s not for them, or they’re bored of Twitter and thinking of leaving, offer up one of these solutions.

What neat ways have you been using Twitter?


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