Twitter can be Personal

I find that when I mention that I use Twitter a lot of people roll their eyes. It most certainly is one of those things that you have to use before you can see the purpose/point of the whole thing. I know that I started with the pretty boring tweets - lunch, random thoughts, pointless information - but I'd like to think for the most part I have moved on from such things and as much as I get from the people I follow, hopefully my followers get something out of my Tweets. Don't get me wrong, a good deal of my tweets are still absolutely pointless, but I love it.

So, I would take a guess that of the 300 odd people I follow I have met/know maybe 50 of them. If I'm lucky. That doesn't mean that I haven't forged a relationship with others, whether about music or advertising or something else, there is generally a conversation that can be had with most of them.

Then something very interesting happened last weekend. I randomly checked Twitter and saw a tweet from @adlandsuit (whose profile tells of him "I'm a senior Suit at a London Top 10 Advertising Agency.")

I thought to myself, hey, that's a pretty amazing idea. And when he later tweeted that he would send internationally, I decided to get in on that action. I want a postcard from Edinburgh! Love postcards, so I DM'ed him my address.

According to his blog, he "posted cards to all parts of the UK, to Denmark, France, Italy, Spain, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand" and requested that if the postcards turned up that we let him know. Well, wouldn't you know it, got home after a wonderful night of partying in the small hours of Friday night/Saturday morning, and there is was, so I did as asked, and sent him a twitpic:

I guess the point to all of this ramble, is that I like the fact that when you boil it down, Twitter is actually quite a personal medium to communicate with people. While I have a Facebook page and use Facebook as a social network, it is all very focused around friends whom I have known, in the real world, for quite some time. Twitter gives (I think) a better opportunity to talk to people that you have never met, and then use the people that tweet things of interest, to pick up other people to follow.

And the other point is that I am amazed by @adlandsuit's idea. Having over 1,200 followers, he could have been writing postcards all day if everyone had sent him an address. It is a thoughtful gesture from someone who is completely faceless (like really faceless, he's just a suit).

Speaking of thoughtful gestures, it is Random Act of Kindness day tomorrow. I have my random act of kindness all planned out. What are you going to do??