This weekend I have been spending time with my father where the dinner conversation quickly turned to my job and the social media space. While a fairly tech savvy man, he has not yet entered the world of social media. While fairly well versed on the Facebook scene via his three boys he was clueless as to what Twitter was or why anyone would care. I feel like this is a conversation happening all over the place, in both social settings as well as more formal explanations to executives as to why Twitter should be used as a company/brand.

As i was explaining the greatness of the Twitter community and all that I use it for, from personal communication to business updates, he seemed to get hooked on the business updates. As a career executive this didn't surprise me, always looking for the business advantage of a product. Naturally this is how the remaining conversation went, "What does it look like?", "How does it work?", "How will this help my business?" with the majority focused on the final question. He was facinated when I was telling him about the search function Twitter has worked so hard on after purchasing Summize. Being in the portable fuel cell industry, we spent the next half hour searching around looking for tweets relating to fuel cell technology and what people are saying. This was the tipping point for him. After this explanation and extended talks about the value of social media for business I think I have another convert.

I'll make another notch in the proverbial belt later but for now we can safely change the above equation to Twitter + My Father = Believer

Bookmark and Share