Monday 8 April 2013

The power of Twitter

The world of networking never stands still.

In my posting of 8th January, I remembered how, when Minerals Engineering journal was initiated 25 years go, many professional people did not have email. I formed MEI seventeen years ago, and even then much of our correspondence was by ‘snail-mail’ and very few companies had their own website.

Now everyone has email and it would be inconceivable for any professional not to have a dedicated website.

Twitter
I feel that Twitter currently has the same status that company websites had around 15 years ago. The problem with Twitter is that is has always had a bad press, partly due to its slightly silly name, and even sillier name for its method of messaging, by means of tweets. It also has the reputation of being trivial, actors, sportsmen etc regularly tweeting to their followers what they had for breakfast, their thoughts on world domination etc.

As networking is a major part of MEI’s business we decided to try it out some time ago, but as my posting (What is the point of Twitter) 3 years ago shows I was highly sceptical of its value, and was wary of telling anyone that I had a Twitter account as this invariably produced supercilious smirks.

However, attitudes are changing and I now see the real potential of Twitter and its power as a networking tool, particularly if you have a message that you want to get out to the wide world.

As you can see from the column on the right, MEI now tweets updates on all the latest mineral processing news from around the world. I am pretty confident when I say ‘all’ the latest news, as we now follow the tweets of the major minerals industry news agencies, and trade magazines and professional societies, all of whom now have active Twitter accounts. Relevant news from these sources is retweeted and appears in our list of tweets.

The point of this posting is that we are trawling trade magazines etc, to find companies who have Twitter accounts, in much the same way as I sought company websites all those years ago. If you are a mineral processing company, we would like to follow you, so that we can retweet your news to a global audience, so I invite you to follow us @barrywills and we will reciprocate.

I would also appreciate any comments regarding your experiences with Twitter.

2 comments:

  1. we as Mineral Engns should salute you for your foresight; passion for the profession and constant endeavour to bring the world community of Mineral Engs together and get them up tated; my personal congratulations and hope you continue to serve the Profession.
    Best wishes,
    Rao,T.C.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Many thanks for your kind comments TC

      Delete

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