What Does Five Years On Twitter Do For You?

I stumbled onto a random tweet in my stream today that mentioned that today marks my five year anniversary of joining Twitter. If I hadn’t seen it I wouldn’t have been aware that today marked any sort of anniversary.

Most of that is because I am still recovering from celebrating my son’s 13th birthday and his Bar Mitzvah. Even though I can attribute some very good things to my having joined Twitter I can’t really compare the two nor do I want to.

But for what it is worth I can definitely say that both were life changing events, but Twitter pales in significance and that is as it should be.

Five Years Later

I can’t say that I have written a book or books about Twitter and social media but that is ok with me.  Fact is I referenced Mark’s blog and book because some of you are unfamiliar with Twitter and are unaware of what it has done and can do for people.

My experience with it has been exceptionally positive. I can attribute friendships, work and brand ambassadorships to it. That is important to me because when I look at the amount of time I have put into social media it is nice to see that there is a positive return on my investment.

When I look at Twitter and my experience I see it as the platform I used to build my blog and where I discovered that there was much more to blogging than I had ever really thought of.

Five years later I look back and laugh a bit because it started with the same sort of whim that led me to blogging.

How I Used It and How I Use It Now

Twitter has changed and so has how I use it. When I first started I was far more active and involved in engaging with others than I am now.

Some of that was because I had more time and I wasn’t as active on so many different platforms. There were fewer places to hold conversations and less homework for my children so it was easier to devote more time to it.

Today I find myself having to work much harder to make time for Twitter. It is not a great change and being less engaged has probably hurt my influence because influence in social media is tied into how active you are.

I know that it is not just me that has noticed the change because I have had multiple conversations about it.

Some of you have told me that you think Triberr is a major contributor to Twitter having turned into more of a broadcast channel but I am not certain we can break it down to just one tool.

Automation has impacted Twitter in major ways and that includes many tools that are not named Triberr. There has been a major influx of brands onto Twitter and that had an impact too.

There Are Still Conversations

I still have many conversations on Twitter and I still see many others that I am not involved in. The biggest distinction between now and then is you have to make more of an effort to make them happen.

Sometimes I think that the 140 character limit has made it more challenging because when you compare Twitter to other platforms it is sometimes easier to have a more in depth conversation elsewhere.

I find that happening quite a bit on Google Plus and Facebook but that doesn’t mean it is not happening on Twitter because it is. I know this it to be so because I still participate in those talks there.

What about you? Are you on Twitter? How long have y0u been on and how often do you use it? Would love to hear your thoughts.