The First Month on Twitter for @contactjeff

As a follow-up to yesterday’s post on “Twitter Makes Sense If You Follow the Right People,” here is more of what I (a.k.a. @contactjeff) learned during my inaugural month on Twitter.

- I follow Robert Scoble’s Tweets and he’s always sharing the latest trends and tools. Some way over my head, but I learned about and experienced Qik (streaming video service right from your cell phone) and Summize (a very cool Twitter search engine) through Tweets from @scobleizer.

- The concept of live-blogging at conferences. The SXSW Conference took place during my early Twitter days and having Twitterkin there and sending live Tweets about conference highlights (with links) was an eye-opener. At another conference, @TDefren tweeted a comment about Google by presenter @kamichat that led to this PR Buzzsaw post.

- Links to articles in the Mainstream Media that I otherwise might not have seen, such as a link from @steverubel about a BusinessWeek article praising Twitter.

- Breaking news – a few times I learned of news events first via Twitter, then turned to CNN for follow-up. A Midwest earthquake in April was an example of this. Another time, @newmediajim helped spread the news of an Amber Alert he saw on a highway sign.

- Innovative uses – I’m learning first-hand how companies can use Twitter to their advantage. Tony, the CEO of online retailer Zappos, is a great example of this, engaging in conversations with the Twittersphere and making the company feel real to me. I’m also a fan of Grammar Girl’s podcasts, so @grammargirl’s Twitter posts add to her persona (brand) and remind me about the podcasts and alert me to new books and other projects.

- Twitter is able to connect people to each other in the real world – imagine that! Twitterers at conferences let each other know where to meet, where the best after-parties are, etc. And conferences have their own Twitter accounts (i.e., Blog Potomac) to gather attendees and provide updates on who’s speaking. And tonight the popular Twitterer @pistachio is rounding up people (a Tweetup) for beers somewhere in Boston.

- Traffic to this blog. By far our highest traffic day occurred when we wrote about mommy bloggers and how Johnson & Johnson was facing criticism for its outreach. I mentioned it on Twitter, some of my followers Tweeted about my post and in a 24-hour span the average traffic jumped tremendously.

See? There’s much more than what someone had for lunch. It’s all about finding interesting people to follow and joining the conversation.