The Intersection of Online and Offline

POne of the main challenges that public relations and communications professionals face is that when something new comes out that we “get” as a legitimate way to spread the word, we often face at best, blank stares, and at worst, derision.

Hence, Twitter.

The first time I heard of Twitter, I too thought that it was someone describing my stereo speakers that play treble. Not so. Sure, a lot of people use it to talk about what their cat had for dinner, but it is undoubtedly a tool with legitimate business applications.

Marketing Vox says it better than I can:

Enterprise blogging has been lauded for its ability to “humanize” a company and make distant executives feel available to ground-floor customers. Twitter can serve the same purpose much more quickly.

Twitter spearheads the “microblogging” trend, where people air thoughts and share information in real-time while observing a 140-character limit. Here are tips for getting the most out of it:

Subscribe generously. Twitter is among the only social media brands where the subscriber:subscribed ratio is reversed. Most users follow a higher number of people than the number following them.

Don’t just be casual; be personal. Enterprise blogging works best when a blogger is frank about what’s happening in his company. But it is generally understood that the blogger will not discuss his personal life.

There’s a lot more to learn about Twitter (and I am still learning), including Dan York’s blog post about how Twitter needs to deal with its outages.

But for those of you who are pushing a new media rock up an old media hill, remember that making the case for business applications is critical.

Mark

P.S. You can follow my Twitter page here.