How twitter has changed the world

On Saturday evening, when I turned on ESPN to watch the FA Cup match between Tottenham and Bolton and saw the fall out from Fabrice Muamba's collapsing live on the pitch, I learned quite how much Twitter has changed the media.

I couldn't take my eyes off my Twitter stream and the relevant hashtags (Twitter's tagging convention for non-Twitter users).Through Twitter I learned exactly what major news channels were saying about what had happened and Muamba's progress; what celebrities thought about it and what ordinary people - some I knew and some I didn't - thought.

I know I wasn't the only person doing this.

It was the evening when I realised that things have changed for ever; Twitter is now an essential part of how we share and indeed consume information and if you're not part of it, you're missing out.

Being on Twitter doesn't mean that you have to broadcast your every move or share what you had to eat, but you do have to be there.

Join in the conversations that interest you - you'll probably be surprised to find that people are talking about you and your business - and stay out of the ones that don't. It's the easiest way to increase your reach and find out what people are really thinking.