My History on Twitter

With an invitation to tell the world what you are doing with only 140 characters at your disposal, Twitter quietly launched on the web in March 2006.

Since that time, more than 500 million accounts have been created and over 200 million are active each and every day.

Yet, it\’s not infrequent that I hear people tell me that they don\’t use Twitter or that they don\’t \”get it.\”

That\’s okay. It\’s not for everyone. And I can empathize with those who don\’t understand what it\’s all about.

Today marks my SIXTH YEAR of being on Twitter!

However, I can\’t say that I really got the hang of what Twitter was all about right away.

How\’s that for an inspirational and stirring entry into the social media space?

It gets worse…

My second tweet came six months later.

Uh-huh. I still didn\’t get it.

Fortunately, shortly thereafter it began to click with me. Twitter is the world\’s biggest party, and everyone is invited.

Not a respecter of region, age, gender, income, vocation or preferred subject matter, Twitter was the place to discuss anything… and everything.

From the mundane tweets announcing that the dog farted to breaking news of a more significant nature, Twitter\’s simple share-whats-happening-now approach to micro-blogging has become the water cooler of the 21st century.

When John Wiley & Sons approached me to pen the first mainstream book on Twitter, I seized the opportunity to share how businesses and brands could leverage the power of this cool site.

As a result, Twitter Power: How to Dominate Your Market One Tweet at a Time, was published in 2009. Due to its success, a 2nd edition was released in 2010, Twitter Power 2.0. The book became the best-selling book on using Twitter for business and has been translated into six foreign languages.

What I find amusing is that I had about 5000 followers when the first edition was written. Around the same time, the race for one million followers was on between Ashton Kutcher and CNN. Ashton won.

As of today, Justin Bieber has over 39 MILLION Twitter followers. As for me, well I\’m approaching 78,000 followers. I don\’t think I pose a threat to Justin. ;-)

Over the years, I\’ve had a number of profile changes. I was also one of the fortunate ones to have my account \”verified\” by Twitter. They still do this, but no one knows the magic to make it happen. You just have to wait for them to find you and verify you.

As Twitter has grown and become more sophisticated, my numbers have increased. But one thing stays the same.

Twitter is still about engaging with others. Regardless of whether you are commenting on last night\’s episode of your favorite TV show, rooting for your favorite team, critiquing the government for airport security, reaching out to a popular celebrity or sharing a photo of your breakfast, Twitter remains a microcosm of the real world.

Twitter is a powerhouse and any business or brand ignores it at their own peril.

Thanks for six years of tweeting goodness, Twitter. Here\’s to the future!