Not on Twitter yet?

When I first took a look at Twitter I was a bit overwhelmed. You only get 140 characters, people are chatting and flitting across the single page screen (which you have to manually update), and it just seemed like a silly place to be. Impossible to keep up with it all, I thought. Another time waster.

However, I kept hearing about it and finally I decided to give it a shot.

After signing up, I flipped over to the Top Conservatives on Twitter (.com) website and started "following" a few of the folks at the top of the list. This was the equivalent of dipping your toe into the pool to see how cold the water might be.

It was rather fun watching the info flow, the links fly and the tweet chatter. I went back and followed a few more. Wading now...

I started posting comments and getting responses. Dog paddling...

Some of those I followed reciprocated and my list of followers and those I followed started to grow. Getting deeper...

Some were extremely helpful, sending me links to "Twitter for Dummies" articles and general tips. Swimming lessons...

Then I found TweetDeck. Life on Twitter became so much easier. Columns, the ability to group by cause or topic, to see profiles quickly without opening another web page, the ability to delete tweets and so many other features gave a bit of organization to the wild world of Twitter.

OK, I'm swimming with the sharks, now and ready for anything...

I have connected with so many interesting people! I get so many news tips, not just from Fox News and Drudge, but from my vast group of Twitter friends.

It's encouraging, too, as I find that there are so many people across this great country who are working to preserve those values and principles the majority of Americans profess to hold. I've discovered a whole conservative nation. When I start to get a bit down about the "change" Obama promised and is delivering, I flip over there and just scan the tweets. Ah, a fresh breath of intelligent, conservative thought.

Another thing that I've found fun and helpful is Twitter Feed (.com). I feed five or six of the blogs that I contribute to or manage directly to Twitter. The titles and a short intro are posted automatically on Twitter. It can't help but increase readership. More importantly, the news I find is redistributed to others who can also help to spread the word.

Long post. I know I've written some shorter posts encouraging you to try Twitter, but I had a few minutes so thought I'd rag on you again. If we are going to carve out a niche in this fast changing world, we need to do it now and do it quickly. We need to be on every social media network available.

We seem to have lost the media battle, at least thus far. We may win the war for a true balanced media in the days too come, but we certainly don't want to hand over the Internet in the meantime.

Go ahead, dip your toe into the water, or better yet, just jump in and go for it.

Links:

I'm "Read My Lipstick" on Twitter.

www.twitter.com
www.topconservativesontwitter.com
www.twitterfeed.com
www.tweetdeck.com