There's been a lot of press around Twitter lately, whether it's too hard to use and if the channel has a viable future.
I like to bet on Twitter's future, as it's a channel I get a lot of engagement from. People are much more responsive on Twitter than on email.
When I worked at SAP many years ago, and social media was in its infancy, I wanted to start a social media professionals group where those of us trying to figure out how to best use the new social media tools for business could exchange best practices.
I started by listening to some social media webinars by Cisco, as the company seemed quite leading in social media. While in the webinar, I used the event hashtag to chat with other participants.
By reaching out directly to some of the presenters, asking them if they'd be interested in a local best practices group, I met many wonderful people; many of them I am still in touch with. One of the people was Petra Neiger. I asked her on Twitter if she wanted to have lunch to talk about a group and the rest is history. Since then we've become friends, exchanged a lot of knowledge and even been to each other's yoga teacher certifications.
The group we started still exists, it's called BASC (Bay Area Social Media Council) and we meet about once a month for dinner. If you are a social media professional and would like to join, ping me.
Nowadays, I run my own social media consulting business, MarketingXLerator, and teach at UCSC Extension Silicon Valley.
The deck above is from my Fundamentals of Social Media Class and looks at some of the key data around Twitter use and it's viability as a marketing platform.