Reach: 1.7million. Cost: free.

I joined Twitter! I’ve been holding out on a personal Twitter account due to the number of company accounts I maintain. I decided to move to Twitter as my primary social network tool for a simple reason, Facebook is cluttered. Yes, I know I could filter my Facebook news but I shouldn’t have to. I fear that flaw might be fatal for Facebook eventually, simplicity is the greatest of all challenges.

I’m taking it one step further, I’m limiting the number of who I follow to 50. I’m finding solace in simplicity these days. I was like many of you, a fat kid in a candy store (don’t take it personal), my network quickly expanded to so many I don’t have a REAL relationship with. This will be an experiment in the proverbial quality of relationship vs. quantity. This is not to say that social media is probably the best tool for networking to new roles, new friends and so on, I’m finding more value in quality connections at this point in life.

I’m not sure I fully understood the social media gospel I’ve been preaching until WholeFoods retweeted one of my first tweets… to 1.7 million of their followers! Here’s the tweet. It was nothing special, just a little wit and honesty about how much I love their product. My message reached a potential audience of 1.7 million, for free. The point is, this changes everything! I get it!