Why You Should Tweet

Twitter is a free micro-blogging service.  It’s similar to instant messaging.  You type your message, limited to 140 characters.  Unlike instant messaging, your message is published to all those who are “following you.” 

The premise of Twitter is answering the question “what are you doing now?”  Many people using Twitter for personal reasons use it to post random thoughts. 

You can set up a public network or private network of followers in Twitter.  In a public network you can use Twitter’s search function to find people you want to follow.  Type keywords to find people whose profile includes your keyword and browse and select people to follow.  Each person you select to follow will be notified and they can check out your profile and optionally choose to follow you.

You can use Twitter from your computer and from your mobile phone. 

I have been using Twitter about six months now.  I have some observations and ideas to share here.

I have noticed that those who use Twitter, really use it a lot!  When you post a comment, your are “Tweeting.”  Hey, I didn’t make this up!

Personal use of Twitter can be very entertaining.  People leave random thoughts about whatever (including yours truly).  But, people also leave comments with links to useful content.  Do you want to follow a celebrity?  If he/she has a Twitter profile, you can.

The greatest value in Twitter is the instant pushing of a message to a community of followers.  While, many people are not yet even aware of Twitter, its popularity is growing like crazy.  In fact, Twitter is known for having frequent outages, usually not lasting long.

Here are some ideas to consider for using Twitter in productive business applications:

Customer Support
Your customer support manager can invite customers to follow him or her in a private community.  As events unfold throughout the day posts can be made and customers can follow and respond.  Good conversations can unfold.  Most importantly, the customer appreciation for the community development can strengthen loyalty and future sales potential.

Sales Support
A sales manager can set up a private community of sales reps, and the supporting cast - product managers, sales engineers, select executives, etc. For sizeable sales teams spread geograhically around the country or globally, a Twitter community can provide real time responses to sales situations.  Using computers and mobile devices, Twitter conversations can provide really useful and timely sales support. 

Marketing Support
Similar to customer support, a marketing team needs input from the market.  Input from selected customers, sales people, suppliers, etc., can be an ongoing communication process using a private community in Twitter.

Technical Support
Most product development teams have some technical members.  A private Twitter community allowing those members to share thoughts in real time can foster community and provide valuable input.

Thought Leadership
Executives, consultants, authors, speakers and anyone with subject matter expertise in a discipline can enjoy a Twitter community.

How is Twitter different than blogging?
It is much more real time than blogging.  Each entry is limited to 140 characters.  But, it is a form of blogging.  That’s why it’s called micro blogging.  Twitter access through your mobile device is a big difference which really allows productive, real time communication.

Whatever you do, don’t get on Twitter and promote yourself, your products, your company or anything!  An occasional link to your own content is ok, as long as it’s good content, not shameless self promotion.

Are businesses using Twitter?
Yes. While I don’t have an exhaustive list of businesses to share.  Here are three just to paint a picture (one is a municipal government agency). 
http://twitter.com/apple_news
http://twitter.com/Oracle
http://twitter.com/LAFD

Recommendation

Go to Twitter and register youself or your company.  Search for companies or people using Twitter.  You never know what you may find.  If you don’t find what you’re looking for, try again in the future.  Remember that Twitter is still young and growing.

Here are some Twitter tools:
Tweetdeck: http://www.tweetdeck.com/beta/
This Adobe Air application helps to organize your Tweets and makes it very easy to do direct replies to people, and track your replies. 
Twhirl: http://www.twhirl.org/
This Adobe Air application allows you to use Twitter the same as you use Instant Messaging.  As your Tweets come in, you see them in the lower rigth of your screen.  You can add Twitter posts here, rather than going to Twitter.

Expect to see more Twitter applications as it continues to grow.

Are you using Twitter yet? 

Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/berniebay
 

 

 

Tags: micro blogging, Twitter