Debbie Steedman
Handle @GeordieArmani
Tweets 96,357
Following 1,613
Followers 4,748
Bio "A mad Geordie, based in Dubai, Mother to an 8 year old Angel Child and 5 adorable kitties. Social Networking Queen" x
Debbie Steedman, 47, a British freelance social-media specialist who has lived in Dubai since 1996, joined Twitter in April 2009. Famous for her blue cat avatar, her daughter and husband also have accounts.
"I've been using social media for seven years and used to post on forums with the ID, bluecat, so when I joined Twitter I used that as my avatar and made up the name GeordieArmani. Thanks to Twitter, it's become a brand and I now have a blog site on the back of it as well therealgeordiearmani.com.
I didn't expect that to happen and my popularity still amazes me.
I tweet about 50 times a day but I mainly use Twitter as a search engine. If I want to know something like what time the Metro starts I go straight on Twitter and nine times out of 10 I get the correct answer.
What I love about Twitter is that every age group and nationality is represented.
My eight-year-old daughter joined because she comes to Tweetups with me and knows people by their Twitter names. She has about 70 followers but doesn't Tweet very often because I won't let her go online unless I'm with her.
I've met so many new nationalities through Twitter which is something that doesn't happen in real life.
It's very difficult to explain to a non-user the benefits of Twitter but for me it's opened so many doors and I've met so many new people. I'd be lost without it."