I know you've heard of Facebook, and if you aren't on Facebook, you have friends urging you to get on Facebook.  But Facebook is not your only option if you're interested in experimenting with the social media craze. The other big social media site is Twitter, but while it's easy to see the point of Facebook—connect with friends, play wildly popular games like Farmville—it may be difficult to see how tweeting (that's the term for posting to Twitter, not "twittering") could conceivably improve upon your already hectic life.

Actually, if your life is insanely hectic, you might get more use out of Twitter than other people, because Twitter is the perfect communication medium for people who only have a few seconds at a time to catch up with what's happening on the Web and in the world. 

Bill Gates appeared on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart on January 25 and talked about why he joined Twitter on January 19, in spite of being one of the busiest men alive. 

Above is Gates's interview, in which he identified his primary use of Twitter: microblogging.  If Gates goes somewhere or meets someone interesting, he can tweet that factoid to his 350,000+ new followers.  Gates revealed a second motivator (twittivator?) the same day on Good Morning America:  to keep his finger on the pulse of public opinion about the Gates Foundation.  Since joining Twitter, Gates has also used the social media site to draw attention to his Annual Letter for 2010 and to announce the launch of his new website, Gates Notes.

20 WAYS TO USE TWITTER

For many Twitter users, Twitter is a one-function platform.  A musical artist may use Twitter strictly as a speedy news outlet which is personal and fan-friendly.  Some bloggers use Twitter purely to provide links to their latest blogs for followers who don't want to subscribe to an RSS feed via email, but want to pick and choose, based on the blog headline, which blog they want to read.  The beauty of Twitter is, you can follow anyone unilaterally, unless they choose to block you, which means Twitter is more like the Facebook fan page than the Facebook friend function.  You can follow your favorite celebrities, favorite funny people, and favorite companies.  They may or may not choose to follow you back.  You can link up with interesting people who would never befriend you on Facebook, but who tweet interesting content that you, your email contacts, your business associates, your Twitter followers, and your Facebook friends might enjoy reading or viewing.  When you make someone else's tweet your own, giving them attribution by including their Twitter name, it's called a retweet (RT).

1.  Promote your business, blog, or both.  Follow up with your customers and get quick, easy feedback without bothering with chat or email.

Since this is one of the most common uses for Twitter, I'll provide an example of the kind of conversation that occurs on Twitter between a vendor and a customer.  These are not real tweeters.

@jewelrypeddler: 1 turquoise pendant left; 20% off ships free

@webcustomer:  @jewelrypeddler do u take paypal

@jewelrypeddler:  @webcustomer <link> here is our payment pg we take paypal Google checkout & all major credit cards

@webcustomer: @jewelrypeddler kewl just ordered pendant didna get confirmation in email tho

@jewelrypeddler: @webcustomer resent it, did you get it?

@webcustomer: @jewelrypeddler yes

@jewelrypeddler: @webcustomer appreciate your business! Tweet me when it arrives or if you have any questions

Using Twitter and other social media to draw attention to special offers and steep discounts, Dell sold millions of computers during a slow Christmas retail season.

2.  Using twitter hashtags and media outlets on Twitter, follow breaking news about world events, celebrites, sports, and weird things that web mavens are obsessing over at the moment.  A hashtag is a tag on Twitter that looks like this: #trendingtopic.  

3.  Find and "retweet" interesting developments in your career field, hobby, or other area of interest.

4.  If so inclined, share tidbits about your personal life for other people's entertainment.  Tom Bodett of "Motel 6" fame (@TomBodett, twitter profile pictured at right) often tweets funny things his kids say and do, and so does comedian Paula Poundstone (@paulapoundstone).  Pop music parodist and musician "Weird Al" Yankovic (@alyankovic) and author Neil Gaiman (@neilhimself) frequently tweet incredible photographs of their fascinating (and amusing) lives using the Twitpic application.

5.  Tweet music that you like, using the hashtag #nowplaying (which also allows you to see/hear the most recent songs other people have tweeted). My favorite tool for music-sharing is http://song.ly.

6.  Share your purchase activity as a consumer, including links to pages showing the products you thought were worth spending your money on.  Yes, this makes you the target of marketing, but that can be a good thing, and spam is just a fact of life. Besides, if you fancy yourself a wise consumer, tweeting about your purchases helps promote worthy vendors with good products.

7.  Speaking of promoting the deserving, you can buzz up your favorite charities on Twitter, and keep track of their good deeds by following them.  You can also use Twitter to donate to a charity or worthy cause. The American Red Cross used Twitter to spread the word about their donate-via-text campaign which raised over $5 million for Haiti in $10 increments.

8.  Tweet (and retweet) WWW links--to whatever you find on the web that you think your Twitter followers would find cool or informative.  John Cleese (@johncleese) of Monty Python fame, who is perennially verbally inventive, calls his followers "Twats", a moniker which may catch on.

9.  Inspire and encourage others, and be inspired and encouraged by your favorite religious leaders, life coaches, gurus, and/or just ordinary janes & joes that you happen across whose lives and tweets uplift you.

10.  Find, and promote, good deals on things that you buy.  The "#deal" hashtag is frequently used for this.  If you are following your favorite companies and vendors, you will be offered special coupon codes on Twitter and special offers on products in short supply.  You'll never miss another sale, and often your local stores will be tweeting information in addition to the main store headquarters.  Want to know when @katespadesales has one pair of shoes left in your size?  Follow on Twitter and be always in the know.

11.  Get educated by the masses on every topic under the sun.  Twitter is a great tool for gauging a wide range of public opinion, minute-by-minute or over time.  You'd be surprised at what you can learn from strangers.  You can also get an RSS feed of any given Twitter topic.

12.  Lobby, demonstrate, and protest about issues that you care about.  Join forces with other people who are making their voices heard.  Politicians, business leaders, movers and shakers, and other powers that be are paying more attention to social media content every day.

13.  Keep abreast of new computer and web technology or at least make a heroic attempt to do so.  Technology is advancing so rapidly that in the Web-world inhabited by media moguls, old news is news that is 24 hours old.  For example, today, January 27, 2010, Apple will release a tablet device which no one knows the name of yet.  It could be the iPad, the iTablet or the iSlate.  Nobody knows which website(s) to watch for the very first developments, but Twitter's collective consciousness will be sure to find out, within seconds.

14.  Talk to your friends on Twitter, via private tweets (called direct messages, or DM) or public tweets.  To talk to a fellow tweeter, as in the business deal in #1 above, you type the tweeter's Twitter name, @whoever, followed by the message you want to direct to their attention.

15.  Schedule a "tweetup", or in-person meeting, with other tweeters using your mobile device.

16.  Find Shaq and get a special prize.  LA Lakers star Shaquille O'Neal (@THE_REAL_SHAQ) uses his Twitter account to give gifts and schedule Tweetups simultaneously, which activity he has dubbed "random acts of Shaqness."  For example, Shaq will appear at a sporting event or amusement park and tweet an announcement that the first person who finds him at the gate will get free tickets.  If you are a famous person with numerous fans, Twitter is a great medium to make all of your fans feel loved and appreciated.  Many celebs post to their Facebook or Myspace fan pages and to Twitter simultaneously to connect with their fan base in seconds.

17.  Find and vote in online polls or cast your vote for American Idol contestants, the People's Choice awards, etc.

18.  Twittersurf, which is a different activity altogether from web surfing.  Here's how it's done:  pick any person on Twitter, then click on an icon for one of the people they are following.  Skim the page.  Click on one of the people this person is following.  Skim.  Repeat.  After about ten minutes of this, you will be in the company of people so radically different from the person you started with, that you will have an epiphany about the interconnectedness of the human race, or else you will get very bored and do something else.  The Five Degrees of Separation will soon be knocked down to three if enough people get involved in social media networking.

19.  Vent, crab, kvetch and whine about whatever is bothering you.  There are tweeters (also called tweepies) who specialize in this to great effect; unfortunately, most of them are too profane to promote on this family-friendly site.

20.  Play clever word games with the geeky, the wordy, and the just plain crazy.  These are promoted (and perpetuated) via hashtag. A recent great example:  #geekedmovies

RESOURCES FOR THE TWEETING NEWBIE

Probably the best guidebook for newcomers to Twitter is provided by Mashable, The Twitter Guide Book.  CNet has also published the "Newbie's Guide to Twitter." Tim O'Reilly (@timoreilly) of O'Reilly Media, a top social media expert, held a Twitter Boot Camp in June, offering training for using Twitter for business promotion and for other purposes, and the slides are available here.  O'Reilly also co-authored The Twitter Book with  Sarah Milstein, available at local libraries or at Amazon.

Small business owners may be interested in  "27 Twitter Applications Your Small Business Can Use Today."

And finally, Sam Harrelson (@samharrelson) created a step-by-step Youtube video to take you through the entire process of joining Twitter and beginning to tweet.  This is an older video, but it is still popular and very useful.