Dan’s already said most of what I was going to say but, I’ll vote:

Like any platform, it took me some time and experimentation – about as long as this thread, actually – to figure out how to leverage the format of twitter. Probably still learning there, like everyone. But most experimentation, I find, is worth the investment EVEN if you end up scrapping the experiment.

I’m a problem solver who needs the help of other problem solvers. Twitter is decidedly a better format than blogging/commenting to help solve problems.

Blogging is to thinking / mulling as Twitter is to doing / alerting.

Rebecca Coleman and a number of us #theatre twitterers are about to launch a twitter- and blog- fed campaign for theatre. Watch how it works. It might be a good way for you to test how warm the waters are in your neck of the woods.

@nickkeenan

Lookingglass uses Twitter as a marketing tool (rather than a social tool). Initially, I had ambitious plans to give the username and password to all of our artistic staff and allow them to update it as often as they like. Anyone who’s ever tried to get an artist to blog knows that if they’re not interested, you can’t convince them otherwise. The same goes for ‘micro-blogging’ (aka tweeting).

Instead, we feed our Tweets into our homepage. It’s almost always me tweeting, but at least once a day there’s something interesting to tweet about. It provides a stream of new content on our homepage, and gives us easy ways to illustrate how much there is going on at Lookingglass on a daily basis (rehearsals, education programs, press hits, etc.). This proves to be limiting, however; we don’t send direct messages or tweet too informally, because it shows up on our homepage.

Those frustrated with the brevity of tweets may be missing the point, which is most often to link to other information or media. Rather than reading what you think of it, they get to experience the content themselves.

But I think in the end I most agree with Rikstest: it’s a platform, a medium. I think many folks hope the transitive property will be in effect, delivering hip-and-with-it cred and scads of young, tech saavy consumers to their door or theater vestibule. Rare is the person who actually takes the time to figure out how to speak the tounge natively instead of relying on clunky transliterations. How many theatre blogs are launched only to be the morgue for press releases? Nick Keenan called a similar question in regards to a web trailer we shot for a production I’m doing with his company.

If you want to use Twiiter as a marketing tool, in some ways you have to approach it like one would approach an old media buy: does this medium reach people who I am trying to attract and/or who are likely to be interested in my work? What messages/imagery/calls to action work better in this medium to attract that target group? How can I measure my results? The low cost certainly helps make it attractive, but the time investment is not cost-less.

It works much better, possibly, as a networking tool – but again, it takes time and effort – the very same hustle that got your grandfather his job at Amalgamated Widgets Corp. There’s a hell of a lot to wade through to find actual relevance, but it is there. And while you can connect to, say Neil Gaiman in a way that was never possible before, a glance at the 13,600+ people from whom you are indistinguishable means if you want a, say, professional connection you’re going to have to work pretty hard to stand out.

I'm enjoying connecting with theatre people locally and internationally on behalf my employer Theatre at UBC (University of British Columbia) and for my own theatre company shameless hussy productions.

These are early days folks – we're in the wild,wild west of social media and have an opportunity to shape what it will become via our participation. The potential for artists to collaborate & share here is exciting.

How to find theatre people? Don't forget the "search" function at the bottom of the page which also links to an advance search. Try searching "festival", "theatre"… etc. etc.

Use your googling skills to figure out what the lingo means – or better still ask a helpful twit. Heck make up some twlanguage of your own!

I think it was Anon that posted an article here a month ago that posited that the internet was the first “true medium” because it can take almost any form. I feel like if I participated in all forms the internet took I would just be on the web all day and not making theatrical forms. I also do not instant message. It is neither email nor a phone conversation.

On the other hand, it totally makes sense for Rebecca to use Twitter considering her field and goals. Different strokes etc. It is probably valuable as Ian noted to “Tweet” new posts on your blog though. We did that during the election on the Department of Culture site and it probably kept us on some people’s radar, you know, social media expert types.

I joined Twitter a couple of weeks ago and was pretty mystified at first.

The first thing I noticed, and a friend said it so well: “Everyone on here is a friggin’ social media expert.”

It also felt like a bit of an echo chamber. I didn’t know what I was supposed to be doing, or who I was supposed to be listening to, or what I should be saying.

My first update was, predictably, “checking out twitter”.

And I still don’t understand all the nomenclature associated with it:

Tiny URLs
Tweeps
#theatre
@ianmackenzie
following
followers
Wil Wheaton
Guy Caballero
Tweeps
Twits?

But after a couple of weeks, I feel like I might be starting to get the hang of it.

I did tweet notice of this blog post on my twitter status, and I think this discussion has benefited from the insight of people who might not have otherwise seen the post, or participated.

What’s the key lingo?

As a person who came of age with internet dating and found my partner and many friends through chat and other such means, I find this sort of technology helpful in deepening relationships that otherwise would never exist. Matches with people of like minds that I would never meet due to geographic constraints… but, now… I just might!

As an artist, following other theatre professionals can inspire me to engage in projects and explorations that I might not normally consider. As a Regional Theatre artist, I mostly get to New York when auditioning actors, the rest of the time I’m executing artistic projects here in Norfolk. DC, the closest large theatre hub, is three hours away. That leaves my professional interaction with only people in my building. But through twitter (which helps to facilitate blogs, podcasts, youtube, and many other parts of the info web I’ve created for myself) I’m able to be connected to what is going on RIGHT NOW in New York, Canada, LA, Regional Theatres, DC, and internationally.

It also better connects me to things within my state that are just too far for me to visit on a regular basis. Richmond Shakespeare and Wayside Theatre, smaller companies doing great work, help make up the professional theatre atmosphere of Virginia. It’s important that I know what’s going on there, too. Not to mention that people in my building and in my city tweet from their different departments.

So, while for some this twitter exploration is one more means of “internet marketing”, for me it creates possibilities of deep and sincere impact.

Also, being limited to 140 characters forces you to choose your words wisely. It’s a way of getting right to the point. And it’s useful if you don’t have the time to blog about something immediately but want to let everyone know about it.