What happens when you Twitter hard core for a month...

A well known cousin of mine insisted that I join Twitter well over a year ago.  Me being a busy college student, ignored his offer until the start of this school year.  Like many who join, I didn't quite get what all the hype was about at first.  After experiencing an "ah ha" moment in March, my view on Twitter changed.  I am now addicted and question how I lived without the dang thing.

I decided to record my Twitter habits for the entire month of March 2009.  The following is a brief write up of my finding.  Please note that these results are a bit skewed as I was on vacation for a week with limited access to the internet, nonetheless, here we go...

My Twitter Background:

Screen Name: @SenoraBeeps

Joined: Wed. Sept. 10th, 2008

Number of Followers: 251...252...and counting

Number of Followings: 231...haven't updated today quite yet

Number of Updates: 368...and counting 

Break down of March Tweets:

Total number of tweets for March: 243

Number of RTs (re-Tweets): 35

Number of Replies: 86

Number of original tweets: 122

Content of My Tweets

This varies depending upon what I'm doing.  Most tweets are conversations among friends, RTing a resourceful or funny link a follower posted, live tweeting guest speakers in my classes, or some smart comment that made me laugh.  All in all I try to keep my tweets resourceful, informational, yet a tinge personal.  I have 251 people following me, some are CEO's of companies in the UK, NY, or even Utah.  I want to make sure my tweets are something I wouldn't mind sharing with them.

Retweeting

I typically only RT snippets of information that are informational or funny.  This includes anything from information about jobs/internships, links to sweet articles, advice about social media, or a priceless YouTube video.

People who I RT often: @MUAdClub, @MarquetteU, @MUSG, @Spreenkler, @BigShoesNetwork, @Mashable, @SueSpaight, @AlKrueger, @gldneaglegrl, @FvrythingPR

Replies

Obviously the only reason you'd reply to anything is if you were asked a question, or want to add your own two cents to a tweet.  Most of my replies were in direct response to a question, or a quick "Thank You" to someone acknowledging me.  I'd have to say the two people I reply to the most are some good friends of mine: @KariDunham and @KevKoz

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

As I mentioned in the opening, I experienced a Twitter awakening mid-March when @Telie came and spoke to one of my classes.  @Telie (AKA Tannette Elie-Johnson) is a columnist for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.  After her guest appearance, I started following her on Twitter.  One Monday she asked for advice for her column via tweet.  I responded and she used my tweet in her column.  From that one mention of my name in her article I accumulated nearly 50 followers in ONE day!  Suddenly everyone was asking me for advice about Twitter.  I even offered advice to the author of "Selling to Zebras" the #1 best selling business book of 2008.  Twitter is a powerful medium that allows you to connect with people you otherwise would never have the opportunity to.  Because of Twitter I have secured a full time job after I graduate, a job that requires me to use Twitter to promote client's brand awareness and events.  It's also nice to be part of the few to know just about everything before the rest of the world.  For those of us in an industry that requires you to be on the cutting edge, Twitter is your ticket.  

My only negative experience is getting addicted to Twitter.  It's honestly not that bad, and has opened several doors for me. I may have a bit of time management issues now, but I can assure you I am actively working to improve upon that situation :)      

World's FIRST Collabrorative Orchestra announced TODAY!

A few weeks ago YouTube launched a rather unique contest. Musicians from around the world were asked to submit a video audition in hopes of capturing a seat in the world's first collaborative orchestra, The YouTube Symphony Orchestra. The winners will participate in an 3-day offline summit with world renowned musicians and then play Carnegie Hall.

How crazy is this?! This is an opportunity to bring people together from around the world and create a beautiful sounding piece of musical bliss.

The Carnegie Hall concert takes place April 15th. For more details visit http://www.youtube.com/symphony

Find International Love based on your Social Media habits

Groundswell: Winning in a world transformed by social media--a book written by Charlene Yi and Josh Bernoff gives some insight on how to keep up with this ever evolving world.  One concept discussed is The Social Technographics Ladder.  The what?

The ladder looks at consumers' social media activity and places them on a corresponding rung.  From top to bottom there's:

• Creators: this top group publishes web content-- a blog, web pages, uploads self created video, audio/music, writes articles or stories.
• Critics: This group contributes their opinion to web content.  Instead of generating like the former group, these guys rate, review, comment, and edit existing material.
• Collectors: involved in the sense of using RSS feeds, tagging web pages or photos, and always eager to participate in online polls. 
• Joiners: fit right in with social networks.  These guys maintain their own online profile and bum around the social networking sites.
• Spectators: Read, watch, listen, but never adds their own two cents
• Inactives: Do not participate in any of the above activities

On their website, Groundswell breaks down the ladder into age group, country, and gender.  I'm interested to see where 18-24 year-old fall on the ladder. 

• American Males lead the Creator group, but females from the UK are right on their heals. 
• No surprise that Americans also lead the critic group, with France right behind them.
• American Males and Australian Females are the top collectors, while Germans basically neglect this rung of the ladder.
• The ladies from America join groups left and right, so do other ladies from the UK, Canada and Australia.  Italian gals need not join, they're busy spectating.
• Ladies from Germany and Italy tie for the most inactive, while US and Australian guys and gals are the least inactive.

While this info. may be interesting, I wouldn't recommend using it as a means to find Mr. (or Miss) Right. 

True to their word

Red Interactive Agency.  Mean anything to you?  No?  Yes?  Maybe?  Here's a hint: it's an independent interactive agency.  No $hit you say.  Visit their website, you will be amazed.  Of course their site is crazy awesome with flash, but they take it 1 step further.  

Once you enter, you're asked to create a character, a user name, and share what city and country you're from.  Why?  Well, Red Interactive Agency's web site serves not only as an outlet for visitors to find out more about the agency, but it's also a mini alternate universe, kind of like second life.  Here you're free to chat with other visitors, dance, punch them, walk around, and fly around.  Sit back and be engaged, interact with others, and try to figure out wtf is going on.

Koodos to Red for being an interactive agency that actually showcases their talent where it counts: on their own web page.  Red has won numerous prestigious awards for their client work, but also for their own work in promoting themselves.  So many agencies are all talk but no show, preaching the know how of social media, promising an interactive experience, yadda yadda yadda.  Here's one agency that is all show...with smart talk to back it up.