My name is apersico and I am a tweetaholic. Ok well I am not quite there….but if I lose focus I could be.

Twitter is my latest social networking obsession, and for those of you that have been on the moon (although even some astronauts are using it); Twitter is a social networking and micro blogging service that enables its users to send and read messages known as tweets. Popularized in 2009 by celebrities and celebutantes, today Twitter has roughly 18 million users and that number is steadily growing.

I set up a Twitter account almost a year ago and toyed with it on and off until recently when my addiction manifested. I now tweet daily. This isn’t because I have a desperate need to know what Kim Kardashian is doing, or to share my every thought, but more because I feel like it keeps me in the know. I learned through a TMZ tweet that Michael Jackson died before it hit the news, Chitownnews tweeted Loul Deng was ready to play this week after the flu, Billy Dec tweeted about Sunda’s first birthday, and Crains that financial firms and banks will do more hiring in the second quarter. Most of this information is only useful if I plan on being a game show contestant but twitter does have some professional aspects and by following tweeters that share relevant professional information it can be very useful. My firm, Orion Recruiting, along with many others are using twitter to post jobs and communicate with potential candidates. The trending topic,” #Jobs“,is getting hundreds of tweets a minute which could be very useful to a job seeker. Many firms are also advertising on Twitter and using it to share information, even financial industry firms such as CME and FIA are tweeting. Let’s consider some of the twitter pros and cons:

Tweet Pros

1. You are in the know and up to the minute on everything.
2. Free Advertising to your followers to post jobs and share information about you and your firm.
3. Easy- Twitter is user friendly and mobile with cell phone apps it can be used anywhere anytime.
4. You have a voice. Twitter is always available to listen to your thoughts even when no one else is

Tweet Cons

1. Everything you tweet can and will be used against you. Tweets are short and can easily be misunderstood. If you don’t use privacy
   settings, your tweets can be read by anyone so you never know who is
   reading your tweets.
2. It’s addictive
3. Twitter can be a waste of time- some tweets and stories while interesting can be enticing when you should be doing something else.
4. You are too connected and there is just too much information!

As with all social mediums there positives and negatives that beg the question: what is your Twit pro Quo?