Terrified of Twitter? Here Is the Cure - David Wheeler, Chronicle of Higher Ed

Think of Twitter as a listening post, a wireless microphone you can toss out on the Internet to learn about what people are saying. Yes, perhaps someone will sneer at your “zero tweets.” But let’s pull back for a minute. Technology as a badge of global hipness—aren’t you tired of it? The people who, no matter what social-media platform you say you are on, always respond with one you have never heard of? Are you on hyPerRunCool? Um, no, I’m not. Let’s face it: We are all running on a technology treadmill that keeps shifting in space. Up, down, sideways. To circle back to a point of “collected wisdom” I already made on social media, first take stock of what you want to do: Stay in touch with friends; extend your professional connections; build a global audience for something you or your institution are trying to communicate. Then put social media to work for those goals. Using social media to listen can be a logical first step.