The Big Mexican Tweet-Up at Dona’s Donut Shop…
6 Reasons to Use Twitter

 I'm not a real big user of Twitter and the other popular social networking sites online. Sure, I believe in their value, no doubt about it. I'm just not big on socializing with strangers, period.

But I may be changing my mind. Here are my 6 reasons to set up a profile and use Twitter a couple times a day:

1. The movers and shakers are there. I don't know about you, but I like to know what the trend setters are up to. I like to know what's going on so I don't get taken by surprise when a major shift happens.
2. The buzz is there. Here's up-to-minute stuff, really up-to-minute. If pirates are shot and a captain rescued, I learn about it first from the Twitter buzz.
3. I track keywords like "content marketing" on Twitter and I can read blogs I've never heard of before that talk about this topic.
4. Some of my favorite clients use Twitter and I can learn what they're doing. If I see an opportunity to help them, I jump in.
5. My competitors are also using Twitter, so I can keep tabs. I can even look for opportunities to jump in and help them, you know, turn them into partners instead of rivals ;-)!
6. My blog posts are fed into Twitter, and new readers come from there to find my posts. Twitter is a good way to drive traffic to your blog, and Twitter readers tend to comment more.

But here's the most fun thing that happened this week on Twitter: I ran across two people who were tweeting how beautiful Lake Chapala looked on Easter Sunday here in my village in Ajijic, Mexico. We're having a Tweet-Up today at the local donut shop!

My village is only 15,000 people or so, and only maybe 20% Gringo, so what are the chances of encountering a Tweet that comes from a neighbor across the street from me? Thomas Hellyer is a real estate professional who lives with his family just two doors down from me.

"Mejico Joe" lives only a couple of blocks away. It was through his posting of a photo view of Lake Chapala from his roof top that I found him on Twitter, which led to finding Thomas. I don't even have keyword alerts set up for local words like Ajijic, Mexico, or Lake Chapala but maybe I should…

If you're not yet using Twitter, or haven't understood it's value, give it a try. Check out Patsi's on Twitter and follow me. I'll follow you back.

If you've had any similar stories from Twitter, please share, I want to hear from you.

P.S. Here's my little photo animation with music of a recent walk around Ajijic and back home…