Seems every Tom, Dick and Harry these days is talking about and hawking their Twitter. I’m trying to figure out when I started Tweeting – searched my email and found a message from Eddie, dated March 11th, 2007 simply saying “http://twitter.com”.

I’m thinking then I’ve been tweeting for over two years, and to say the technology, support and people using it has changed drastically is an understatement, but I’ve been using it the exact same way from day one. Here’s an example of both of these concepts. I used the site http://myfirsttweet.com to find my very first tweet (there’s a friggin’ cottage industry of these kinds of site):

danthebeast: Breaking this twitter cherry like so many sunflower seeds. 2007-04-12 22:38:00

I now remember at the time I was eating quite a few sunflower seeds, and in typical fashion for me, I was a little ‘blue’ in my content. I’m not sure what it is about Twitter, but I always feel inclined to either take my tweets “to the next level” as I’m sometimes accused of in the office when it comes to water cooler talk, or I am very negative and pessimistic. Both are part of my cheery nature, and it’s easy to manifest itself in 140 characters.

Nevertheless, I knew Twitter had hit a tipping point the moment it became used for marketing. All of my favorite Tweeters have started to use the site less and less, almost as if their favorite indie band had just struck it big, and now the very fan base that helped grow it, is turning on it. Sell out!

Josh said yesterday he thought Twitter was dead – and that I would stop tweeting. The thing is, I’ve always only thought of Twitter as a way for me to share dirty and silly inside jokes, inane observations and arrogant self introspections with my colleagues and wife. In fact, when my wife Nicole tells me one of my Tweets made her laugh, I count that as a “win”, and use that as ammo for why I won’t stop Tweeting. She’s basically giving me a verbal “RT”. And if in the process other colleagues and friends start to follow me, that’s just icing.

I don’t Tweet to win new business for BKWLD, and I don’t Tweet to sell anything. And the people that do, it’s blatantly obvious.

The point of this meandering post is just to say, if you Tweet, don’t forget why you got into it. If you use your personal Facebook page as a way to network your business, you’re missing the point. Use Linked In. You’re basically the equivalent of the friend who always asks friends to Pampered Chef parties at your house, or is always pushing Mary Kay or another product. Trust me, your friends hate it, and avoid you for asking them about this stuff constantly.

And if you are using Twitter to push your business, you better be coming with some super inside (and fun) info or some great deals.  Your website has a press room or news section and RSS feed for that sort of thing. Twitter, is not that vehicle. I recommend the following website as a primer for your business:

http://www.howtousetwitterformarketingandpr.com/