Twitter Experience

I've quickly become one of those people who are addicted to Twitter. After following as many Marquette classmates and professionals in the advertising and public relations field that I could find, I learned the value of Twitter through observation first. Once I learned the Twitter etiquette and read articles on how to effectively use the site, I began to make my own 140 character post and interact with other Twitter users from Marquette. After enough practice, I felt confident enough to start interacting with more advanced Twitter users in the public relations field. Some people that I have found to offer valuable and relevant tweets are: @briansolis, @acraKA, @zappos and @AlKrueger. I appreciate that the mentioned Tweeters offer a well balanced mix of professional information and advice as well as personal thoughts and ideas. I don't like when Twitter users, especially professionals in the field, constantly Tweet only about what they are doing every second of the day, so I try to avoid those Tweeters. Following a large number of experienced Tweeters who are posting many times a day can start to be a bit overwhelming. I've found TweetDeck to be an extremely helpful tool in organizing my network of followers.

Many people who are not on Twitter do not get the point of what it is used for. However, when used in the right way, Twitter is a great tool for networking and exchanging information with classmates, professionals and friends. One Marquette student that I follow fully understands how to use Twitter to connect and build relationships. I suggest checking out @HalfAdHalfPR's profile for some great examples.

TweetDeck

Today I downloaded Twitter's TweetDeck. Now that I'm using it, I have no idea how I went without it for so long. It is an extremely efficient away to use Twitter. Downloading TweetDeck is easy to do and the application is simple to learn how to use. It is a window on your computer desktop that displays tweets, replies, and direct messages in columns. The application is in real time, so updates are constantly displayed without having to use the refresh button. Especially for those who are following a lot of people in the public relations or marketing industry who are very social media savvy and tweet many times a day, TweetDeck simplifies a potentially overwhelming homepage. Anyone who is accustomed to organizing everything (like I am) will appreciate that the application allows users to categorize people into groups. This helps users to receive information in a more orderly way. It is much easier to sift through a large number and variety of tweets on TweetDeck.

TweetDeck allows users to do most things that they would do on the Twitter Web, like search for people, reply to tweets, or create a post. The color, font, and sound settings are changeable so that TweetDeck users can create a window that is custom-made to align with unique personalities. To download TweetDeck, go to http://www.tweetdeck.com/beta/. I highly recommend this application!