Before Twitter became my biggest resource for research, I was an old schooler stuck with a library card. From that library card, came the advent of the internet and portals–places information flowed from with little structure. And from that evolution came the dawning of the Web 2.0 social media paradigm shift we have today. Although Twitter.com is not the biggest or the baddest social network on the block–they do hold one major distinction–real time instantaneous access to valuable information.

Why Twitter Is The Resource for Information

• Real Time: instantaneous information links
• Multitude: information from every niche, subject matter, topic, and genre can be found on Twitter
• Freemium: the information is free, it is not charged for except in the case of the “old school” news agencies unwilling to understand that information is becoming an “open source” commodity
• Authority: forgetting the welebrities for a moment, some of the smartest most brilliant new thought leaders from many niches share their research, expertise, studies, and cases
• Crowdsourcing: information can be examined, commented upon, and scrutinized via the masses with new information formulated based on these “group” efforts
  Courtesy The Big Cartoon Database

Grow Your Brain On Twitter

Twitter is like your diet. If you choose to consume junk and crap you will end up with a bad body. But if you choose to be careful and mindful of what you consume, perform your due diligence, and be open minded–the sky is the limit. Here is how to get started:

• Identify Niche(s): before you can learn you must target the niche(s) you want to learn about in depth
  How: that is up to you so look within for this answer
• Create Lists: once you have your niche(s) you need to create rough lists of people-companies to follow that fit your research needs. These lists will change as you become aware of more resources. Note: always be willing to experiment & tweak your list(s)
  How: you can use any number of Twitter applications to create lists. Some of the favorites are Tweetdeck, Hootesuite, and soon to be “Lists” function on Twitter
• Search For Sources: roll up your sleeves and begin looking. Start with wefollow.com, try Twazzup.com, utilize Twitter’s internal search engine, & look on Google
  How: list your keywords & keyword phrases relevant to finding your sources; input these keywords with relevant factors like region, geography, or demographics if they apply
• Due Diligence: once you have your list of resources, begin to follow their tweets. Perform some due diligence by going through their tweets to make sure they are the right source for you
• Mine The Blogroll: after finding each important resource (person-company) mine their blogroll of people-companies they follow. Note: this is often an accelerated way to gain new resources to follow
• Save Your Links: once you begin to utilize Twitter you will find massive amounts of important links containing great information. The fastest way to bookmark, bank, these links is by using the “Favorites” button. By favoriting a tweet you automatically save it in your “Resource Bank” for later consumption