Twitter & You: 360 Degrees of Social Network Giving
Posted by Lisa Cruz on Tue, Aug 18, 2009 @ 01:14 PM
Red Shoes PR is excited to have another post from guest blogger tommytrc.
It’s hard to talk about the true power that Twitter has had on my life without talking about giving. Each and every day that I’m on Twitter, I learn something new. Whether it’s a new link, a witty quote or joke, or just some words of advice, my mind is always soaking up information gained from Twitter. Now, mind you, I have been known to be an information junkie. The History, Discovery and Science Channels are my favorite cable channels for gaining new, and sometimes useless, knowledge. So the evolution to gaining knowledge via Twitter is a natural progression of my need for 411. But getting is just part of the story.
On Twitter, giving is as important as receiving. The Golden Rule my mom Sharon used to say is, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” I like to take this rule and twist it slightly. Here’s tommytrc’s version: “Do unto others before they do unto you.” How does this fit into the context of Twitter? Let me explain. One of the most sincere forms of flattery on Twitter is to retweet what someone else has posted. For those who do not understand what retweeting is, here’s the cliff notes edition… Retweeting is sending out on your network what others have sent out on theirs. Every user on Twitter has their very own network of friends. Some friends may overlap, but many do not. If I see an interesting post from someone else, I’ll retweet it so everyone on my network can learn from it also.
Now let me get back to my version of the Golden Rule. I search for interesting tweets and retweet them to start conversations. Retweeting posts from new people or friends I have not chatted with in a while is a perfect way to spread the wealth and keep friendships alive. If someone in my network only has 100 followers and I retweet their post to my network of 15,000 followers, you can see the impact. Just imagine my thrill when Guy Kawasaki retweeted my last Red Shoe PR guest blog posting to his network of over 160,000+ followers. You get the point.
With Twitter, you get what you give and the more you give the more you get. It’s a 360 degree cycle and one that builds and builds. One of my favorite quotes that hammers the point home is from the founder of the famous New York grocery store chain called Wegman’s. In Robert Wegman’s own words: "I have never given away more than I got back."
As powerful as it is to see my own thoughts retweeted, it’s just as important to pass on the insight and information that others have shared with me.