Most everyone today is familiar with Twitter. While it may be fun to view the goings and comings of your favorite celebrity or athlete, I used Twitter in a very different way. Harnessing the power of Twitter was very easy once I realized that you could use the search application to narrow the types of people or entities you follow. For me, I have a son in high school that is quickly becoming college age. While there are the traditional methods of researching everything about a college including the average grade point of applicants, courses offered and other information from its web site or through a visit, using Twitter provided a very personal way to get insight into various colleges. True not every college we are considering has a Twitter site but they are growing every day. The first group of Twitter sites I added was the admissions department of every available college. These tweets consisted mainly of the daily goings on in the department as well as excerpts of the essays from applicants the admission counselors found good enough to share with the world. Frankly, this provided insight into the background, extracurricular activities and overall personality of applicants that the college admission representatives obviously believed had great merit. Another group of Twitter sites added was the sports. My son plays baseball and we added every college sports and baseball site we could find. These sites keep us up to date on the team’s goings and comings, scores and in some cases insights into the coach’s views. Like interviewing for a job, it is of the utmost importance to be as familiar as possible with aspects of a sports team you might join when discussing any recruitment or tryouts with the coach or coaching staff. Finally, but not least important were the Twitter sites of the college students. They maintain sites relating to their feeling about the schools, their campus activities, other students, teachers and the administration. We have found these Tweets to be quite informative as to not only the overall personality of the students taking the time to make entries but even the support and opportunities in the community surrounding the colleges. Using Twitter as an extended college recruitment tool dramatically increased our knowledge of the colleges and surrounding communities. It continues every day to grow as the network of those we follow increases. You can use this type of focus with relation to any type of networking group. It can be used for personal or business goals to both enlighten you and keep you in touch with people and groups in which you have an interest.