You ever notice how many people and companies completely fail at having real conversations online? Sure, they set up all the needed social media profiles, post their pitches, share their videos and when someone says something nice about them they may respond or share it with others. But, when it comes to really talking to people they can't do it?

Earlier this week a friend pointed out that I was about to post my 50,000th tweet and when the milestone came to pass someone else asked how many of those were @ messages and I had no idea. Thankfully he looked it up and here is the data thanks to TweetStats.

I was happy to see that based on their numbers, almost half of my tweets (49.46%) directly involve other people besides myself. This means I'm having conversations with people on Twitter and I'm also sharing their content by retweeting their messages.

Yesterday at Brand Camp University, I stressed to the audience that people need to stop worrying about the "right way" to use social media tools.

I firmly believe that if you talk and act just like you do in the real world when face-to-face with people you'll do well. Sure, that is over simplifying things, but at the root of everything I do believe this. Of course this means that if your a jerk in person...well you know what that means. *grin*

Having a conversation shouldn't be a chore. You either enjoy talking with people or you don't. Twitter and social media are not for everyone.