Being a self-proclaimed social media junkie, twitter is a natural part of my life now. In fact, many of the people I work with and surround myself with now probably feel the same way. We use twitter all day, everyday, and in so many different ways. We might not think of it too often, but there aren’t as many of us as we might suspect.

I’ll give two examples of why I believe this. A few weeks ago, on the opening day of SOBCon actually, I gave a speech on social networking at the Illinois Institute for Entrepreneurship Education Young Entrepreneurs Conference. I’d say roughly 95% of the students I spoke to (probably 50 total) weren’t using twitter, and probably 99% didn’t really know what it was or how to really use it. That was compared to about 95% of them that use MySpace. Takeaway:

Twitter hasn’t completely caught on with the generation that you might expect would be using it.

My second revelation came last night. The Young Professionals Network of my alma mater, Northern Illinois University, hosted a speech on social networking to market you and your company. My buddy and fellow NIU grad, Mig Pascual, was the speaker. Mig is gainfully employed by a little company you might have heard of in the social media world- Zappos. In his presentation, Mig brought up all the benefits of using twitter for personal development, finding a job, reaching out, etc. The audience was comprised of recent grads, ages ranging from 22-30, give or take a few years. Prime twitter users, right? Not quite. I’d say less than 25% had accounts. Takeaway:

Twitter is still comprised of a rather niche group of users- you can’t typecast groups of people into assuming they use twitter.

Finally, my last little rant on twitter deals with how I respond to people who ask how to use twitter. I tell people this; if you don’t know how to start, begin by finding people and companies related to a passion or hobby you have. I use the example of food and cooking. Search out restaurants you like, Food Network stars, top users who come up in searches for food, cooking, cuisine, etc. I emphasize this approach because, to me, it solves a lot of issues for the newbie. First, by focusing on something they are already interested in, it increases the likelyhood that they stick with twitter and will give it a fair shot. Because they are searching out something that excites them, twitter serves as a form of entertainment and discovery that is often eye-opening.

What say you? How do you tell people to begin using twitter?