We thought tweeting on Twitter was a web fad and would quickly fade away. We could not imagine knowing what someone was doing every minute being useful or interesting to us. Last Saturday, I had a conversation about it with @larryczerwonka while attending the second Big Island Meet and Greet for Internet Fans and Geeks in Hilo at Big Island Pizza. His description of rapidly gaining over 20,000 followers and using the media to promote his business made us want to give Twitter a try.
We signed up on Twitter, a very easy process, as @hiloliving. After becoming followers of some of the tweeters we knew, we immediately started receiving a large number of tweets. Since the storm Felicia was heading towards Hilo, we followed our favorite weatherman @GuyHagi at KGMB. Guy’s tweets were very helpful, giving us constant updates about Felicia developments. It was a relief to have up-to-date information on the storm and changed our view about Twitter’s usefulness. It turns out when a hurricane is headed directly towards your town, getting weather updates every minute is interesting and useful.
We started tweeting photos of the surf crashing over the Hilo Bay water breaker and we’re surprised to see Guy Hagi become a follower, along with 8 other followers within 24 hours of signing up. Twitter content is searchable, providing a new way to draw interested readers to blog and web content. We realized that short tweets could provide timely content on the events we cover in our blog and website.
We think Twitter adds a new dimension to the internet, one focused on information in the moment, and we are excited about learning how to benefit from this new technology.
6 comments:
I'm glad you are giving Twitter a try.
I like it and I think it's got great potential.
I found the easiest way to gain followers... was to follow people.
*I'm also scratching my head how I didn't compute you with "Tyler" of Hilolivingblog... Feeling quite stupid I didn't get a chance to talk to you further at the time.
There will be more opportunities.
Hope you don't get "Twiddicted" like I am though!
Forgot to mention...
Let me know when you get comfortable enough with Twitter and I can add your tweets to the FBI Blogs if you want.
tyler, at the same time that you started on twitter so did @carlsaxer who was also at the meeting, he now has 938 followers and @DrJohnLTurner who had a few hundred followers as of the last get together now has 2,579 followers and both are using it to help promote their businesses. they did get the quick numbers by following a system that i sell which guides you step by step through creating a following.
It will be fun to see if it lasts. I have had a hard time figuring out a practical application for the service.
Aloha,
Kehai
@ Keahi Pelayo
using twitter i have got new clients, helped businesses sell their services or products, drove customers to stores, spread the word about deals, created brand awareness, got information on breaking events before it was carried by an news service and met new people here in hilo that i would have never known otherwise.
if you would like to know i invite you to attend one of our big island internet society meetings: http://www.happinessu.org/bialoha/
Wow I have met and associate with some of those scary looking people in your pictures (Wes, Devany, Damon, Jon, Dalynnda). Hope to meet you guys someday soon as well. Our escape is coming along and less than a year to go now!
-Blake
http://www.theboysgreatescape.blogspot.com/
@_blakeyboy1
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