Anyone who follows me on Twitter knows that I’m a chatty soul. Because I work at home, with only the dogs and rabbit to keep me company, I use Twitter as my virtual office water cooler. I learn new things, I get breaking news and it helps me get questions answered. To me, it’s a useful resource for information, laughter and sometimes plain old outrage.

If you aren’t using Twitter because you think you don’t have anything to say and don’t think it’s relevant or useful to you, think again.

Follow people you find interesting or have shared interests with: People with shared interests or interesting points of view are sharing information on Twitter and you might be missing a lot of that valuable content and information.

Learn about the important news stories of the day. By scanning local, state, national and worldwide Twitter streams, you quickly learn what is going on in the world. It’s also a great way to get a sense of what isn’t breaking news today but might quickly become relevant to your personal or professional life. And, by the way, I’m not the only one who thinks that Twitter excels as a news source: Matthew Ingram on GigaOM.com has written a nice article about this very topic.

Attend a conference – virtually. Don’t have the time or budget to travel to a conference but would like to learn from the speakers and attendees at that conference? A lot of conference speakers and attendees now use hashtags (i.e. #innoventure) to talk about what they’re saying and learning at a specific conference. This is a great way to learn while never leaving your desk.

Learn about what’s happening in your community. By using Twitter’s web search, or any of the apps out there that monitor Twitter, you can easily stay up to date on what is happening in your community or state or federal government. Your friends and neighbors are on Twitter as well as journalists, politicians and other public figures.

Twitter as your daily newspaper. Find people on Twitter who talk about topics that you are interested in. For example, if the IT services industry is your cup of tea, then start following the IT vendors and analysts in that space. Need to stay up to date on your favorite celebrities? They’re probably on Twitter, as well as a variety of entertainment industry media folks.

Have a question? Ask Twitter. Need advice on where to eat in Boston? Looking for ideas for this year’s Halloween costume? Twitter users are always jumping in and giving you useful information. You simply need to ask.

Competia has also posted a great blog post about Ten Ways You Can Use Twitter For Competitive Intelligence; I highly recommend that article.

I use Twitter for these activities and many more. How are you using Twitter? If you’re not, why not? You don’t have to be talkative on Twitter. It’s not a requirement that you post anything at all. But you can learn a lot!