Microblogs are the personal commercials of the Internet. Everyone from any walk of life can get in on it, and post information on everything from how they feel at the moment and what they are doing, to the latest announcements on their business endeavors. It is the most popular form of communication on the Internet today. It allows for swift comments and back and forth exchanges without necessarily being 'live' as with messengers, or verbose as with a full-length blog.
What Exactly Is Microblogging?
In a nutshell it is a network that allows its members to post short messages to a select number of followers either publicly or privately. Messages usually are limited to between 140 and 200 characters requiring very succinct wording. Users typically have a variety of ways to facilitate their messages including text via web and cell phone, interconnecting post generators that instantly post to several microblogs at once with a single post, and application platforms.
Where Do You Find It?
The most popular current microblog platform is Twitter, but most of the social networks have jumped on the microblogging platform including Facebook, Jaiku, Pownce, Django and MySpace.
How To Get Started
Getting started is as easy as filling out the form to join the site of your choice and typing a short message. However what you blog is as important as how. A microblog has a very unique atmosphere. It has to be precise, it is usually followed by a large number of people on a general network, and they can't choose not to have your post appear without completely deleting you from their lists. That means not only do your posts have to be short they have to have some meaning. While the most common prompt for a microblog is "what are you doing?" responding with "eating lunch" is not a very useful way to take part and engage conversations. Post insightful thoughts, links to interesting sites, even pictures via links from network specific picture hosts or outside image hosts.
Micro Etiquette
Most common Internet and social etiquette rules such as "be polite" apply there are some specific rules that go along with microblogging. Because of its vast networking ability many users join microblog sites in order to promote their goods or services. That is a reasonable desire but there are good and bad ways to do it. Most people are impatient and chose methods that amount to spam and are quickly ignored by other members.
Finding Friends
Any of the microblogging services offer means to add existing friends from various lists such as email lists, most of them have other means to search out fellow members with similar interests, locations, or other qualifying themes users can choose.
Finding Jobs/Employees
Yes microblogs can even be used to find employees, or for job searchers to connect with employers. Simply search for keywords for the fields you are interested in and find others who are involved in that field and set up connections with them. Be personal as well as inquisitive and let others know who you are and you'll find the networks come to life for you.
