Twitter? I know - I didn't think I would use it either...I'm writing this after just having attended a couple of workshops as a part of our Summer Teaching Institute here at the University of Tennessee.

One of the things that we were required to do after applying for the program was get a Twitter account and start 'following' people (esp. fellow attendees and the Institute account). We've been encouraged to use it as a way to ask questions, keep a 'back-channel' conversation going, and post interesting insights about what is happening during the workshops.

I was convinced that this was going to kill me. I don't especially like Facebook, nor Google+, I'm not going to do LinkedIn, or Digg, or any of the other social media stuff. I was going to do Twitter pretty much because it was required (and since I'm getting a little bump in my pay this summer for doing it...), I was going to give it a shot. However, I have to say now after two days of seeing folks follow me, and being followed that this particular form of social media might be an excellent way to let members or customers know about various things that they might want to know about. Also, and perhaps more importantly, you can also ask questions and get quick responses to them that help you stay informed.

I can think of several examples where one might like to 'tweet' a question and keep track of the responses. For example, you might tweet, "Anybody that played #XYZ_CountryClub today - did you think the greens were too fast, fast but OK, OK, slow but OK, too slow?". You're limited to 140 characters, and using the #symbol links all these responses together so you can see them all at once. Then you could use responses that come in to narrow in on an optimal greenspeed very quickly by comparing the responses from folks to stimpmeter readings you had taken. Having this type of data at one's fingertips can be quite informative and powerful.

Another example where you could use a tweet would be in the event of a delay in play, "#XYZCountryClub has a frost delay until 835", or "#XYZCountryClub has detected lightning within 5 miles, PLAY SUSPENDED SEEK SHELTER". Twitter is being used around the world to report news as it happens, and it seems that this type of quick notification system is very accessible to those of us in the industry that are willing to give it a shot. I'm no expert, and there are certainly those in the industry that are already using it. I'm just suggesting based on this learning moment at my teaching institute that you keep an open mind, and be willing to experiment with some of these social media technologies that have potential to help us communicate with our memberships/customers easily and quickly.

I didn't think I'd be tweeting so easily, but I've found it to be much more worthwhile and less cumbersome than posting a status update, and trying to figure out what is going on with all my 'friends'. Give it a shot, and see what happens!

Dr. Brandon Horvath is a column writer for Landscape Supply, Inc.'s LSI Connections, a newsletter that is sent to our partners in business once per month. Dr. Horvath is a professor and a plant pathologist for The University of Tennessee Turf Program.