After learning how to use Twitter..
Twitter has many applications for the Business User (web based or otherwise) and the following are just some examples
Feedback
Does your website appeal to people, is it easy to use, does it get the message across effectively. Ask people, if you have a following on Twitter, you can ask people to appraise your site, generating traffic, and who knows, if they like it they may come back.
Networking
The platform is a perfect way to connect with a network of peers as well as potential users, sharing ideas and product news/business tips and tricks. It’s fast and effective and basically free.
An Intranet
If you work with others, separated by distance and connected by computer, Twitter provides a connectivity tool similar to a local intranet. It’s easy and free to use. This especially useful for webmasters as they are often dealing with a number of people who are only connected by the internet.
Branding
The most important aspect to modern marketing is the Brand; it is used excessively in internet based business to establish new sites/products in a niche to users. Whilst it is difficult to establish a brand, it is often even more difficult to communicate that brand effectively to a wide enough audience. Twitter allows a free medium for communicating the brand of your company to interested users. (see my article here for tips on Branding)
An Office Tool
Schedule meetings, arrange diaries and manage time with twitter. If you find yourself using Twitter on a regular basis then why not use it as an all in one tool for organizing yourself. It is possible to utilize the application to manage all aspects of your working day.
However you use Twitter, you will find that it is an effective application which can benefit many aspects of your business.
If you use twitter, you will know that it is a platform designed to capture information in small bite sized chunks and present them for search to users. Twitter is the epitome of the lack of attention generation of internet viewers. We all of us spend far less time viewing and evaluating information on the internet than in any other media. Twitter is designed specifically to cater for this phenomenon. Its name, the sound of bird chatter, provides a good clue to how its use feels, it is distracting and at times irritating. It is also well used and has a large community.
Increasingly, Twitter is being used as a tool for marketing (there are those who would argue that it is the purest marketing tool there is as it is the home of the soundbite.) Actively used for self promotion, Twitter will deliver your opinions, links and products to a user base which is actively searching for them. Generate a following, and create a no cost mailing list that is immediately updated, and as Twitter is available via mobile device, you are in constant contact with your list.
Twitter is fast becoming the Loop with which people want to connect, users feel that they are on the cusp of the information highway, instantly sharing and reading many bites of information.
For those few of you who are completely new to Twitter, the following is a very good general intro to the site
Social networking site pushes girl group toward date with the Superbowl. It’s the run up to the Biggest Sporting event in the US of A (although we Brits still don’t know why they wear all that armour, are they pansies?). Of course with the Superbowl comes the entertainment, and the marketing. Forget Virals, this is the sure-fire, one off, event that every alpha male, with his big disposable income, will be watching, probably with a few light ales (that’s beer to you guys) inside of him. In the middle of all this excitement and corporate whoredom are the vignettes of entertainment which have included in the past the infamous ‘Jackson Nipple’ (I remember one source at the time referring to it as nipplegate, how Nixon must have laughed.) This year, however, one social networking site may have found the perfect Viral, without even trying or spending any money whatsoever.
Kina Grannis, an American Singer Songwriter has penned a ditty entitled ‘Cute girls sing awesome song about Digg’ which she has entered into the Crash the Superbowl competition, since user votes formed a part of the selection process for the winner the song made the Digg front-page in an almost record 1hr 22m. If this makes it to the Superbowl the song, lyrics of which include ‘I always Digg up Apple, and bury Microsoft’ (well that’ll please Bill G.) will be watched by everybody and their grannies, in all known languages, in all time zones around the world (probably). Whilst this blogger may have issue with the term ‘cute’ or even ‘girl’ (she is definitely a grown up) it is hard to argue that she has hit gold in terms of bigging up Digg, Apple and herself (I’d never heard of her before reading about the competition, but then I have a narrow taste in music, I only like good stuff you see) Who needs to pay a firm of terribly expensive Viral Marketing Experts when a down and dirty genuine American Singer Songstress can get product placement in the middle of the Superbowl for nothing. Genius.
If you use twitter, you will know that it is a platform designed to capture information in small bite sized chunks and present them for search to users. Twitter is the epitome of the lack of attention generation of internet viewers. We all of us spend far less time viewing and evaluating information on the internet than in any other media. Twitter is designed specifically to cater for this phenomenon. Its name, the sound of bird chatter, provides a good clue to how its use feels, it is distracting and at times irritating. It is also well used and has a large community.
