Twitter true confession: I was wrong

Pass the crow. Five months ago I couldn’t be bothered with Twitter. Now I’m here to say: I get it.

Last fall I started hearing more writers talk about using Twitter for work, so in December I signed up. It’s easy: you pick a user name and password, write a brief description of yourself, upload a photo to go with your profile and you’re in business – able to post messages of 140 characters at a time, sign up to follow other people and ask friends to follow you. Think of it as a pint-sized version of Facebook or LinkedIn, but heavier on the conversation.

People have likened Twitter to a cocktail party or a class reunion. To me it’s more like the scene out of Finding Nemo when the sea turtles catch a ride on the East Australian current – fast, fun and filled with bodies.

Since taking the plunge, I’ve discovered what my Twitter-using friends already had: it’s a good way to track down sources.

Here’s an example. Last week I did a news story for a trade magazine I write for regularly. I tweeted about the story once it ran, which is to say that after the story went online I posted a link to it on Twitter. People clicked on the link and that helped bump up the page views the story got on the magazine’s Website. I’m pretty sure that fact, plus the fact that it was breaking news and I turned it around quickly –  led my editor to call me when he got a tip on some other breaking news to see if I could do that story. I said yes and immediately put out a call out on Twitter for an industry expert – and got a response within 15 minutes. I turned in that story the same afternoon – not bad for a day’s work.

Once the second story was up, I posted a link to it on Twitter and a couple of the sources that I quoted broadcast it to their Twitter connections, or retweeted it in Twitter lingo. Ever since, professionals in that industry have been adding me to their Twitter connections, which adds to my pool of potential sources.

That’s the good stuff. Even so, Twitter still has its faults. People gossip, overshare, flog their businesses and themselves. All that’s easy enough to ignore. The biggest downside is how much of a time waster it can be – and that’s why it took me so long to start using it. It’s too easy to cross the line from trolling Twitter for sources to hanging out just to eavesdrop on the conversation.

Obviously that thought has occurred to other people because there are now a host of Twitter tools for people to use to read Twitter posts offline, send new comments through email, link directly to blogs, etc. – all in an effort to stay productive. I’ll take a look at some of those in coming weeks to see which ones are most useful for writers.

To other freelancers, if you’re using Twitter, how has it helped your writing business?