Ignorant Twitter Bias and First Impressions

Have you ever met someone for the first time, and for whatever reason, you immediately decided that you didn't like that person? Then after getting to know the person, you discovered that he or she wasn't so bad after all?

Of course you have - we all have. Fair or not, it's human nature to form erroneous judgements and opinions about people we really don't know. And while it may be human nature to do this, it's also ignorant.

I was guilty of this type of ignorance myself recently - but not with a person, with an entity. I formed a negative opinion about Twitter, based on erroneous hearsay information. I had heard from some in the media that Twitter was a silly waste of time, and not really a useful marketing tool.

Because those opinions comported with my own negative opinion of Twitter, I bought into the negativity, and ignorantly began badmouthing Twitter at every turn, instead of doing my own due diligence.

Finally, wanting to check things out for myself, I visited Twitter's website, and there they were - four words which would confirm my negative opinion about Twitter.

Those four words? "What are you doing?"

What are you doing? "Who cares what I'm doing, I thought to myself. I'm eating breakfast, that's what I'm doing - but who cares?"

Well, apparently millions of Twitter subscribers care about what other Twitter subscribers are doing, because Twitter has an estimated 10 million users worldwide.

And as impressive as those numbers are, it took having lunch with a good friend of mine to finally make me see the truth about Twitter. My friend showed me how Twitter had dramatically improved his financial bottom line. He showed me before and after numbers. He showed me cold, hard proof, and I became a believer.

Bottom line: I was wrong about Twitter, and I don't have a problem admitting that. Twitter is an excellent marketing and networking tool, which can be used to build relationships and promote virtually any type of business - profit or non-profit. In fact, you are limited only by your imagination.

As a result, I will be using Twitter myself this summer, when I launch my new website. I already have a million ideas about how to promote my business via Twitter. I can't wait to get started!

In the words of Dick Jones from Robo Cop... "Good business is where you find it!"