I started tweeting a little when I was trying to win a Dorset Cereals little blog award a few years ago campaigning for votes. I then realised other than Ada Timmis I didn’t know anyone on Twitter, wasn’t interested in what celebs said, didn’t have much to say other tha tweeting my blog posts and left it for a while. Then I realised that twitter was THE place to network and find out the latest in one of my fields of work – Building Information Modelling – BIM. This Buzz word in the construction industry at the moment is scaring lots of people silly because the government has mandated it use from 2016 on all public projects and take up is generally poor in the industry.
When something is new and perhaps controversial and you already know lots about it you can do 2 things: Knuckle down, keep your knowledge to yourself, mine its commercial advantage and just ‘take’ new information that you find or stick your head above the parapet, shout about it, roll your sleeves up and jump in to the scrum…
That’s what I have done with BIM and for me it has paid off. Mainly using Linked-In and Twitter together with more traditional cereal based beverage networking I have become well known in UK BIM circles, have learnt loads more and am hopefully giving back too. I was rewarded and really chuffed this week to be included in the Building Design Magazine Twitter top 100 tweeters and in the top 10 for BIM related tweeters…. ( you need to register for free to read it) http://www.bdonline.co.uk/business/advice/social-media/bdtwitter100-2013-top-10-bim-tweeters/5050778.article
When twitter first became popular I was sceptical and am on record in some company marketing meeting notes dismissing it as being a glorified RSS news feed and a tool for journalists and followers of celebs. However as its grown and spread if your ‘tribe’ is active on twitter it’s a fantastic place to get the latest gossip, news hot off the press and then just bizarre stuff you would never normally fall across from the other tribes your follow’s tweet or re-tweet . Things to make you angry, things to make you explore new stuff and perhaps just things that make you smile or laugh out loud.
Biking twitter is still in steady growth to some extent, many of the pro cyclists have perhaps been steered away somewhat I think by their teams and perhaps much of the rest is news tweets and general chat from established internet magazine sites, clubs and associations.
There is though lots of other cool stuff out there: it’s useful for finding out the moment entries for massively popular cycle sportives or mtb enduro events go live, some might find it good to get the latest on their favorite tour riders out of season, some to get hints on the latest secret trails, some just to find out the latest on a certain twitter using Texan athlete’s latest exploits but if you’ve not tried twitter give it a go, you might be surprised at what you find ..… what tribes do you belong to?
