I did it. I joined Twitter.

Yes. It's true. I am now a tweep. I have resisted for quite some time now. It seems like I am on a 5-year delay in social media. Facebook launched February of 2004. I joined in 2009. Twitter was launched for public use in July 2006. I just joined. My only exception is Google+. I actually beat the public launch in September of this year. (However, at this point, it is the social media tool I use the least, and it might die anyway.)

So what made me cave and join yet another social media network?

Peer Pressure. I have always been able to stand strong under immense peer pressure throughout my life. So, why would I cave? I don't know. Partly because of my industry. It's pretty expected for a designer/writer/marketing "expert" to belong to almost every social network. I would get all the time, "You're not on Twitter?!" Followed by strange and unnerving looks. I guess I care about my image and don't want to be considered a weird-o. Now I can say, "Yeah, I'm on Twitter. Follow me, dude." That makes me super cool.

Help Clients. How can I teach businesses and clients how to use Twitter if I didn't even know how the heck to use it. Yeah, that's been a problem. However, it is like other social media networks - if you're not going to use it and maintain it, then don't bother. Be cool and update your tweets.

I'm Getting More Informed. Turns out Twitter is much more than a massive whine session, like I thought it would be. Unlike Facebook, people generally share valuable information. People are mostly posting and sharing links to articles and sites. And the great thing is you only have to follow what you want. I'm getting my news headlines tweeted to me, getting updates on my favorite brands, design blogs, and I'm following my friends (oh, sorry...tweeps). Pretty freakin cool.

Sure. It's a game. But at least this one is a little fun!
So, follow me on Twitter, because now I'm cool. Like Travis.