Then You Can Follow @globalphilately!
I wasn't completely sure about Twitter and the need for it, but I've been converted.
I'm now able to communicate with magazine editors and publishers, postal authorities from all over the world, a diverse group of collectors and hobbyists, and all my other favourite human beings.
There's a common misconception that Twitter is a mobile tool, but I use it almost exclusively from the Twitter web page in my browser on my laptop.
You can create a personalised profile page where people can check you out, here's mine
The better your profile, the more chance you have of being followed by the people that you would like to follow-back.
You can search by keywords, such as "stamps" or "philately", and look at the profiles of people you might like to follow. Some will follow you back, some won't. You can also look at the followers of people you might be interested in, and follow them as well!
Twitter is quite intuitive to use and another great way to communicate instantly. It's easy to manage spammers and even easier to unfollow those who Tweet every 5 seconds!
If you decide to try it, follow me @globalphilately and I'll follow you back. look forward to seeing you soon!
A comment received from a friend on one of the forums I'm a member of:
ReplyDelete"Okay, I'll bite...
*How* is it useful for us? Can you give a specific example of how it repaid your effort? (Friends using Twitter say it helps to drive traffic to their website/blog...that wouldn't be useful to me, but I don't deny it has value for those looking to drive traffic somewhere.)
It just seems so...so...so.
But I have an open mind. Really, I do."
And my reply:
"I removed the "Anonymous" option to get rid of spammers telling me how great my blog is, then linking to a porn site! I incorrectly re-set to "Registered Users only". Thanks to you, that's fixed so anyone with a Google Account can post.
Twitter isn't about driving traffic for me, it's about communication.
Both my Facebook page (I don't use a personal page, only my Global Philately page) and my blog are ad-free and are not sales portals, so I have no interest in driving traffic whatsoever. What I do want to do is communicate with as many fellow philatelists as possible, because I enjoy writing and sharing knowledge.
I'm a member of four different stamp forums, and most of the people I've connected to on Twitter, and Facebook for that matter, had never previously heard of any of them! For that matter, many members of those four forums haven't heard of some of the others either. One thing that has been obvious to me for many years is the lack of take-up of forums by collectors in the UK. I know there's some here and on the other three forums I'm on, but I have far more UK contacts via Twitter and Facebook.
On Twitter, I have direct communication with the principals of major auction houses and catalogue publishers, access I would never have had if I didn't have an online presence and relied on cold emails to try to contact them. They answer my Tweets.
Twitter is to forums what forums were to the blackboard. I had a question from a guy in the US on Twitter this morning re websites for perfins. I posted the question on my FB page, and in seconds got a reply from a guy in Brazil. That can happen on a forum of course, but the sheer speed of the three-way conversation, with images and multiple links, was phenomenal.
To me, that's a whole bunch of benefits!
I can understand if it's a step too far for some people, but it is most definitely the way of the future"