Honestly, if I was asked this question seven months ago I would’ve said no. Twitter was an unconventional social medium that didn’t make sense to me. As an avid Facebook and LinkedIn user, the thought of 140 character updates throughout the day didn’t make much sense. I already got annoyed with those Facebookers that updated their personal status three times a day! What was the point of continuous tweets? Who is on this thing? How do you define or sort? These are some of the many questions that I asked myself… until I joined of course!

Today, I prefer Twitter to Facebook. Twitter is the place I go for news and information, a place that helps me sift through thousands of Google headlines and allows me to define exactly what I am on the hunt for (e.g. #scrm). Facebook, on the other hand, is where I go for friends photos, to keep people posted on my weekend plans and to become a ‘fan’ of local businesses. I recently read a blog by Alison Driscoll defining social outlets as related to women’s purses, it perfectly (for women) explains the variation of these different mediums.

I am definitely a tiny percentage of that 11.1% of internet users on Twitter, and for the chaotic, crowded place that twitter seems to be – I find it extremely useful!

Follow me on twitter here.

The first, the City of Bozeman tried to instill a government policy of social network users to give up their user names and passwords if interviewing for a job with the City of Bozeman.  This was quickly overturned following the immediate public backlash.

The second, a Bozeman police officer, went onto his Facebook account to write inappropriate comments about arresting people and his duty as an officer, “there should be a law saying police can take people to jail for being stupid,” Officer Cody Anderson said.   The police officer’s account was looked at following a discrimination case in which he was being investigated.

In my opinion, this recent Mashable article’s title is off base.  Bozeman’s backlash against the public policy that would require social media usernames and passwords is the exact reason why Bozeman gets it.  The local government might have wanted to push to see what future employees might be doing on Facebook, twitter or youtube – but they went about it the wrong way.  These places are public forums, unless we have strict privacy settings on our accounts – our profiles can be viewed by the world.  If the Bozeman employer wanted to check out these applicants, they should’ve done a private search, without asking for personal login details.

Bozeman understood this and instantly reacted to the ridiculous nature of the policy – which is why it was overturned so quickly.  I understand that employers want their brand to stay premium online, and having just one person using these social mediums inappropriately can damage that brand, but asking for personal details was not the way to go about this.  Example one as to why Bozeman-ites understand the influence that social media and being a part of the conversation has.

One person, just one person has the ability to dilute a brand, to give a company a bad name and to diminish credibility of an organization.   The Bozeman Police Department and the officer that recently resigned because of his inappropriate actions (in the field and online) is a perfect example of how this dissemination of information occurs.  The Bozeman Police Department rarely gets bad media coverage, one person made a poor decision and it immediately reflects negatively upon the company in which he is employed.  This makes sense – and this is why social media is such a powerful tool.

Bozeman is full of facebookers, tweeters and bloggers.  Bozeman, a town of 35,061*, from the 2006 U.S. Census Bureau report, has 31,230 people in the Bozeman network on Facebook.  That totals roughly 90% of Bozeman citizens on just one of the multiple social mediums.  Not only is this number significant, but search for #Bozeman in Twitter, besides the silly articles labeling Bozeman-ites as misunderstanding social media, there are hundreds of locals talking about music, art, government, work – everything that most cities have tweets about.  The fantastic thing about Bozeman is that the twitter community is like the true local community, good people, helping each other out and sending each other to the best watering holes or the secret rock climbing spots.

Need more reasons why Bozeman gets it?  Here are a few more points:

F11 Photography, a neighborhood photography supply shop and studio, is using Facebook and Twitter to promote its local brand.   The Bozeman community loves to support our small town businesses, F11 is one of these places, great service, smiling faces – and a management team that understands its market.  People taking photos are promoting them online, and that is where F11 needs to be. (@F11photo)

RightNow Technologies, a publicly traded enterprise software solution company, is headquartered in Bozeman, Montana.  Now, here is a company that can speak to social media.  Recently its customer relationship management software solution announced that it will monitor conversations that are occurring in the ‘cloud’.  (@RightNowNews)

All Things Italian, a Bozeman specialty food store, uses twitter to give out specialty recipes for those that tweet #recipeadvice, has contests for cookbooks and promotes its unique foods you can’t find anywhere else in town.  Not only does All Things Italian tweet about itself, it goes out of the way to tweet about other local Bozeman businesses.  Here in Bozeman, it’s not all for one, its one for all. (@ItalianCooking)

And finally…Montanabusiness.com, a website created to capture all facets of the multitude of Montana businesses.  Montanabusiness.com uses twitter to highlight businesses using these social mediums and announce them to the world.  Giving businesses the opportunity to not only participate in the social web but be promoted as a leading business in the area doing so. (@montanabusiness)

Overall, Bozeman has been given a bad reputation due to these two separate incidences – but for the rest of us Bozeman-ites, that thrive off of marketing via twitter, writing our personal blogs and getting our friends facebook updates, we do know social media – and we do it damn well.

Today we went into our local Bozeman Albertson’s and spent twenty minutes in the toothpaste aisle, almost 40 feet designated to dental cleanliness (conveniently located directly perpendicular to the reputation ridden, teeth-staining red wine). Arm & Hammer ‘Age defying‘ and Tom’s Naturals whitening are far cries from the boring Crests and Colgates, but these choices do less than the marketing agenda planned – - they make us think, far too much. How can we promote ‘younger’ looking teeth? How is whitening ever natural?

As marketers we want to think outside of the box, which in toothpaste sales apparently means just tossing sparkles onto the outside of that little box. The ever-declining self awareness and confidence in consumers is now an easy pitch for marketers – if an individual is using an age defying facial cream, why not put yet another anti-aging treatment into our mouths. I don’t know about you, but I am looking forward to ‘The Fountain of Youth’ mouthwash.

The dissemination of information through social mediums is astounding, but how often do you tweet about your toothpaste (besides me doing it right now, of course)? Brand loyalty is the ultimate goal of any company or business. I believe that loyalty is created through honesty, exceptional customer service and reliability.

The toothpaste we walked away from Albertson’s with? Crest Original Paste – - nothing fancy, nothing sparkling and not the cheapest – - but we recognized it. Plus, we were getting hungry after a long period of scanning the blue and red commonalities.

In a sea of never-ending options, what brands are you loyal to? and where do you stray?