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I’ve had a Twitter account (@barney_lawn) for some time now but in all honestly I’ve hardly used it. I guess I’ve been one of those people sitting on the fence wondering what I’m going to say, why would people want to listen to me, and more importantly, what the value is in participating in this form of social media.

It wasn’t until I attended a couple of conferences recently that the answers became very clear and I finally realized how valuable a tool like Twitter actually is. These conferences were targeted towards IT personnel and I was blown away by the number of people who were using Twitter to share thoughts and ideas with each other, in real time. In addition, all of the shared information was accessible by people who were unable to attend the conferences. Not only did the attendees benefit, but so did the Twitter community at large.

You would think that as a speaker you’d be a little put off seeing people in the audience typing away on their little keyboards as you’re dispensing wisdom on stage. Not so; in fact the speakers were encouraging audience members to do so. All of the speakers were seasoned Twitter users themselves and obviously recognized that by sharing valuable information with tweeting attendees, they have the opportunity to gather more followers and increase their exposure. For example, Angela Maiers (@AngelaMaiers), a speaker at the recent RCAC Conference, has almost 15,000 followers. What a fantastic marketing tool.

So, the Eureka Moment arrived while attending these conferences and my eyes were finally opened to the true value of Twitter as a means of sharing information, imparting knowledge and helping other people in the process of doing so.

Happy Tweeting!

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