I didn't really dive into the whole Social Media movement until late last year. Up to that point, I wrote on my personal blog and invited as many people as possible to join my LinkedIn network, and that's about as far as I waded in. In December, my office started a Facebook group so I joined in and quickly became addicted, to the point at which I monitor and update the office's group.Then, I discovered Twitter and after a few tweets, I was hooked. 140 characters from my favorite authors, links to listen in while a musician crafted her new album, friends tweeting about their work day, co-workers posting jobs (and me re-tweeting them), and my own messages about design software, social media articles, music, books, and ideas/stories that interested me. Soon enough, others began following me, and my little social network blossomed.
Late last week, I finally had the opportunity to put this little network to the test, to see if Twitter was more than just an inane time waster, as I've read in many articles around the internet.
To preface this, we use an online tool to create some of our newsletters and e-mail campaigns. I was recently granted access to work on some newsletters for our market and began tweeting about my learning progress. After the first few tweets, I noticed that some of my new followers worked at the online service I was discussing so I followed them in return.
Another market called on Friday around 3:30 PM (PST) wondering if I had noticed a problem with outbound links in our newsletters. The newsletter was forwarded to me, and I confirmed the same "Cannot find server" message associated with each link. The market already e-mailed our IT Department, but I had this crazy idea. I searched through my Followers list and found the CTO of the online service. And I tweeted a Direct Message to him, somehow managing to squeeze the basic information into 140 characters and not sure if he would respond.
Imagine my shock and surprise when 15 minutes later, he tweeted back with his e-mail asking to take a look at the newsletter, which I forwarded. (I instant messaged the shocked emoticon to my contact in the other market and told him what had happened.) Within 15 minutes of that, my phone rang with a technician from the online service on the other end, and we discussed problem and the steps taken to create the newsletter. It took some time, but we discovered the issue and fixed it.
Not too shabby for a medium which a few detractors called inane chatter.
I'm a Twit and proud of it.
Image from Damien Basile
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