Twittering: It’s Not Just Tweety Bird
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.
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