In my first 365 days, I wrote 2,743 tweets – which is about 110 pages worth of tweeting. I have to admit that I was shocked that I had written so many pages of tweets. (For the math people this assumes that each tweet takes up 1 line in a page and there are 25 lines per page.) It made stop for a few minutes and reflect on what I had learned over the past year from using this new tool.

Below are some things that I have learned. Have a look and then let me know if you think all of this tweeting was really worth it? or was it a massive waste of time? Of course, if you have things to add from your own experiences – please do so. The more the merrier!

20 Things I Learned in My First Year of Tweeting

1. Twitter is a super-simple way to publish messages. How hard is it to write one sentence and hit send? Not hard.
2. When you have 1,000 followers it is impossible to listen to what everyone is saying with equal attention.
3. Tools like TweetDeck and Hootsuite help me organize my Twitter “ears” and listen to the people and conversations that are most important to me.
4. I choose the conversations to follow and dip my toe into other conversations of interest throughout the day.
5. In some twitter groups – members find and share articles that would be impossible for 1 person to find on his own and in a timely manner.
6. Twitter is a great way to spread content to like-minded individuals.
7. Twitter isn’t for all people.
8. Twitter is public – so it won’t work for any private or confidential corporate events.
9. Many-to-Many conversations on Twitter are fast-moving, action packed and fully archived. Watch what you say!
10. Conversations on Twitter can be archived at wthashtag.com. This is a great resource to go back and review what was said.
11. I once summarized a full conversation of tweets with 1 tweet. Is that good or bad?
12. I started this blog because of Twitter. I know 10 others that did the same.
13. Twitter is a super-simple way to connect remote and virtual attendees.
14. While the movers were packing boxes at my home, I participated in a conference via Twitter 4000 miles and nine time zones away.
15. Luckily, not everyone is on Twitter.
16. I never had any interest in following Shaq, Britney Oprah or Aston Kucher.
17. The #eventprofs community on Twitter is awesome.
18. I attended a conference in February because of the people that I met on Twitter. I had an awesome time! Some people think I was crazy.
19. I attended a conference in March because someone tweeted that they were attending. Does that make me a stalker?
20. Twitter introduced me to thousands of interesting people in the past year. If it weren’t for them – I would have left this technology long ago.

Bottom Line

While Twitter is a simple technology – it is a powerful communication tool. After 110 pages of tweets, I am very thankful for the people that I met on Twitter this past year. Without them – I probably would have abandoned the technology very quickly. Thank you Twitter friends!

image credit: @cdharrison

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