I get a little tired with marketing fluff and superfluous words that people use, don’t you?  I mean how many characters or words can it possibly take for someone to convey a thought or an idea?  I know we all use superfluous words but sometimes people layer it on just a little thick; there have been many a situation where I just wanted to say “shut up and tell me what you want!  I wish people could just get to the meat of what it is they are trying to ask me (or pitch/etc).  What happened to efficiency?  What happened to effective communication?

If you think about twitter for a moment you will see that it is a great solution for taking care of fluff.  You have 140 characters to tell me what it is you want to tell me…go!  Stowe Boyd used the term “twit-pitch” to describe this.  Actually, Stowe reserved twit-pitch to companies that wanted to pitch him.  I’m saying we can use it for a whole lot more.  We can use twitter as a general way to see if we can convey or ask something in a straightforward no B.S. manner.  I have found that a lot of people have come to appreciate twitter, not just for the valuable connections you can make but because of the straightforward communication you can have.

When I first signed up on twitter I found that I was trying to write these fancy tweets to connect and introduce myself to people (for business opportunities and such), you know, the one’s that go:

“Hi bob, I came across your profile on twitter and noticed that you were involved in selling peanuts.  I love peanuts and I think it would be great if…..”

After using twitter for a while I now send the following messages:

“hey bob, you sell peanuts?  i love peanuts, we may be able to collaborate and help each other out, interested?”

Notice how tweets get right to the center of what needs to be said and eliminates all the extra words.  Basically what I’m trying to say is that you should be able to get across a whole thought/idea/product pitch/etc. in 140 characters or less (remember some characters go towards sending the message to the person).  If you need more than 140 characters then go over what it is you’re trying to say and eliminate all the garbage fluff words.

It’s funny because I have found that in casual conversations I am now much more direct and to the point than I was before I started using twitter.

How has using twitter changed your conversation, both on and offline?

Thanks for reading!

Comments