Twitter in a Nutshell
I am often asked about Twitter and the number one question is “what is it”? Well, in a nutshell, Twitter is a free text messaging application that allows you to publish/post a brief thought, idea or message. This thought, idea or message is called a Tweet. I said it is brief, because your Tweet is limited to 160 characters – the size of a Text Message (SMS Message). You can post a Tweet to your Twitter page in various ways, the most common of which is either by your Web browser or by your cell phone. Other people can then choose to have your Tweets show up on their twitter page, cell phone, etc. They do this by somehow finding your Twitter page and electing to “follow” you. You can do the same to other people and/or organizations. In the end, when you post something whomever is following you will instantly receive it. Conversely, when the people you are following post Tweets, you immediately receive those messages.
The idea is to build a network of individuals and organizations that you trust, admire and/or respect. The other idea is to build a network of relationships that can foster your objectives and vice versa – whether those be personal or professional. In short, if you follow some basic etiquette and don’t bombard people with useless dribble 24/7, people will listen to what you have to say. So when you are at the mall or the Harley dealership and have a sudden epiphany on the meaning of life or see an amazing sale, you can Tweet your network the information.
In addition to promoting your own ideas and circumstances of daily living, you can use Tweets to point people to other ideas, products, websites, etc. The sky is the limit – well at least whatever you can fit into a 160 character message.
You can also promote other people’s Tweets – whether you are following them or not. This is known as a “Retweet” and is simply you re-displaying another Tweet to your network. Of course this Tweet will be prefixed with the fact that it is a Retweet originally from someone else. This can also be done from eternal websites that have content who allow you to “Retweet” that content back to your network.
One important point not to miss is the fact that the majority of Twitter users have it hooked up to their phone. This allows them to receive network Tweets in real-time when away from their computers.
Configuring/Personalizing Twitter
You can set Twitter up to send all the information to your phone or you can simply leave everything on the Twitter Website where you can view it through your computer’s Web browser. You can customize the look and feel of your page using provided templates and a color configuration picker. You can even upload your own background “template” image. You can setup lists for certain types of Tweets and enter a small amount of personal information (name, one-sentence bio, picture, website URL).
Twitter Tools
There is a plethora of tools that allow you to capitalize upon the power of Twitter and the gamut of information flowing through the system. For example, you can track desired keywords and have the messages containing those keywords sent your way. There are also tools to search for a keyword within all Twitter messages. There are tools that allow you to verify a follow request is a person and not some spamming machine. There are also powerful tools that integrate multiple applications such as LinkedIn, MySpace, Facebook and Twitter. The tools are numerous and changing every day, but here is a short list of just a few:
- You can use www.tweetscan.com to search for keywords.
- If you are a LinkedIn user, you can post LinkedIn status updates directly to your Twitter account.
- There is also a widely used application called Tweet Deck (www.tweetdeck.com) that can be downloaded to your computer or SmartPhone. Tweet Deck allows you to manage conversations and replies, track and view trends, follow topics, manage multiple Twitter accounts and update LinkedIn, MySpace, Facebook and Twitter.
- You can use www.truetwit.com to validate a user’s request to follow you.
Twitter’s Usefulness in Business Environments
On a personal level, it is cool to be able to instantly keep in touch in a disjointed (asynchronous) way with your network of followers and followed. Up to this point most of you are still thinking “what a waste of time”. However, within the realm of business, keeping in touch with your customers, suppliers and affiliates in a unique way might just be a goldmine. Directly reaching out to people who have chosen to follow you and already respect you can provide great benefit. If you are a non-profit, promoting your fundraising, staying in front of your base, showcasing your needs and asking for those needs to be met has proven to be priceless. Organizations such as DonorsChoose.org (donorschoose on Twitter), 12 for 12k (12for12K on Twitter) and the National Wildlife Federation (nwf on Twitter) and a few others have all been successful on a grand scale in this arena (3). On the for-profit side of the fence, pushing your promotions, your products, your services and your business information via a free medium has proven to be very successful. Gary Vaynerchuk has proven that promoting yourself on Twitter can be very productive. He has built a $5M to a 50M$ company largely due to the power of Twitter (1, 4). Other companies have used Twitter as a tech support tool where specified keyword searches are sent to employee Twitter accounts and employees can answer product/service questions (2). Businesses such as Zappos and JetBlue have done just that by staffing some to monitor and address relevant Twitter traffic as it happens. This allows them to deal with unhappy customers or potential issues before things get out of hand.
In addition to keeping in touch with your business relationships, having the ability to see what people are saying about your business, your products, your industry, your product line, your competition, your competitions products, etc. can prove to be very useful. The catch is, you have to figure out how you can use that type of data to your advantage.
In a sentence, the power of Twitter lies in that it provides a platform for you to directly touch your targeted market and gain information about and capitalize upon the conversations, ideas and relationships surrounding your business, product, industry, competition, etc. Exactly how you do that is up to you (and is the “hard” part). However, a great place to start is to just start. Tweet your promotions, discounts and the benefits of your product, service or business. Of course, keep in mind that if you bombard your network with Tweets – even useful one, you may just get “unfollowed”. Happy Tweeting.
1. http://www.fastcompany.com/blog/lon-safko/ten-commandments-social-media/twitter-about-twitter
2. http://www.fastcompany.com/blog/stephen-l-rose/tech-odyssey/twitter-%E2%80%9Cintelligence%E2%80%9D-%E2%80%93-new-bi-tool
3. http://www.fastcompany.com/blog/lydia-dishman/all-your-business/tweet-tweet-ch-ching-twitter-changing-way-nonprofits-make-ask-0
4. http://garyvaynerchuk.com