"How to make Twitter work for your business"
By Ian "Gizmo" Richards
You may believe that Twitter is just for self-obsessed Generation Y's who think the whole world is actually interested in the fact that they just showered or bought a new shade of lipstick.
Well, you may need to update your viewpoint, because Twitter's also a great way to share vital information with colleagues and co-workers.
Communicating in no more than 140 characters
Twitter isn't the biggest social-network Web site; with an Alexa Rank of 54 (i.e., the 54th-most popular site on the Web), Twitter falls well behind Facebook, which comes in at number 5, and MySpace, number 9. However, Twitter's growing much faster than either of its higher-ranking rivals.
The reason for Twitter's astronomic growth lies in its simplicity. Unlike other social-network sites, Twitter is designed primarily to carry out a single function: to let your friends and other people in your network know what you're doing right now. It works like this:
When you sign in to your Twitter account, there's a simple box at the top of the screen labeled "What are you doing?" If you enter something in the box, your "tweet" is sent to everyone in your social network, which consists of anyone who has decided to "follow" you. Similarly, you may follow others and receive their tweets whenever they're posted.
So every user has "followers" plus a separate group of people the user "follows." In a close network of friends, the two groups may be the same; more commonly, the two groups overlap but are not identical.
But here's the main point: the maximum length of a tweet is 140 characters. This makes communication with your network quick, easy, and focused.
Why some people hate Twitter: unbridled vanity
Many think Twitter is the lowest form of vanity publishing. Certainly, the idea of telling other people about the most minor events of your day — such as "I just tried out my new electric toothbrush" — seems to be based on the strange belief that someone could actually be interested in such trivia.
Others dislike not only Twitter's content but also its format. They see Twitter and its 140-character messages as the final degeneration of written communication.
There's much evidence to support these attitudes. Anyone who takes a cursory look at Twitter will find it awash with the most inanely trivial details of people's lives, while a depressing percentage of the written language that chronicles this domestic floss is nearly illiterate. However, none of this has diminished Twitter's popularity.
If that were all there was to Twitter, I'd have no interest in the service at all. But thankfully, there's more.
Looking beyond Twitter's personal trivia
To understand Twitter, you need to put the social network in historical context. Put simply, Twitter is the latest development in the ongoing deformalization of written language. Let me explain:
All of us have received (from relatively elderly senders) e-mails that are long, formal, and carefully crafted, just like postal letters. Such e-mails are a total pain to respond to because a standard short e-mail reply seems inappropriate.
What the senders have failed to grasp is that the e-mail medium is designed for relatively brief notes and quick answers. E-mail's writing style differs from that of snail mail.
Instant messaging IM) and short message services (SMS) represent the next stage in the evolution of written language. These forms use an even terser format than e-mail and are designed for short, snappy messages that will produce short, snappy responses.
Now we have Twitter. With a maximum message length of 140 characters, it's even more constrained than IM and SMS. You can write a somewhat lengthy SMS, but you simply can't write a lengthy tweet.
Rather than a curse, this can be a blessing. It means that you can communicate without a lot of overhead. With Twitter, there's no space for niceties and no room for excuses or preambles; you have to get straight to the point.
This is certainly an advantage when describing the trivial details of your personal life. However, it's an even bigger advantage when communicating more weighty matters. Furthermore, there's no shortage of substantial information available from Twitter; it's just buried under the noise.
Finding the serious uses for Twitter
Twitter is used widely by businesses, experts, industry pundits, hobbyists, and others for much more than personal trivia.
Although "serious" tweets are in the minority, there's enough "serious" information being communicated that you should start thinking about how you can access it. And quite separately, you should also start thinking about using Twitter yourself to disseminate your own professional information.
Here are four simple ways to make a start:
- Search for tweets: Twitter's search feature is a great way to unearth information. No, it's not a replacement for Google or other major search engines, but it does serve as a surprisingly useful supplement to those services. Twitter searches are particularly useful for finding fast-breaking news and inside information. Indeed, if you want to find out what your competitors are doing, Twitter's one of the best sources around.
Unfortunately, the presentation of Twitter's search results is not very effective. For more refined search results, try the impressive Twazzup and Twitalyzer search services for Twitter.
- Find and follow area experts: Tap into the knowledge of people who share your interests or profession by following their tweets. You can locate these people using Twitter's own search function, but it's usually more effective to use a Web service that specializes in this area.
Twellow, for example, lets you narrow your Twitter search by product categories. If you already have some tweets to your name, try Mr. Tweet, a site that looks at what you've posted and finds people with common interests.
- Get your workgroup tweeting: Twitter is a great option for communicating within a closed group. Whether it's for work or pleasure, think about getting your friends and associates together on Twitter. For geographically dispersed workgroups, Twitter's a cheap and simple option for keeping everyone in touch.
Twitter doesn't provide a group feature, but it's easily done by creating a special Twitter username just for the group. If privacy is an issue, consider using the free GroupTweet service.
- Turn your tweets into feeds: Use Twitter to implement an easy-to-access RSS-style feed for disseminating information. Just create a dedicated Twitter user account where you can post your items. Anyone can receive these posted items by visiting the page and then "following."
Now, don't get me wrong: there's plenty of mindless dross on Twitter. What I'm saying is there's some great information there as well. Feel free to complain about the trivial aspects of Twitter, but please don't throw the baby out with the bath water.
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Just for Fun or Useful Links
Never put in an honest day's work again!
There's just not enough time in the workday to idly surf the Internet, work on side projects, update your personal blog, tweet on Twitter, update your Facebook and MySpace pages and get all your work done.
This satirical solution may give you just the edge you need to outshine your co-workers while perfecting your trash-can basketball shot! Play the video
M&Ms
Another fun site is the M&M site at http://www.m-ms.com/. There are lots of different fun things to do, which I'm sure the kids will love and even as an adult I found very enjoyable. This is a fine example of a corporation turning which could be just another stuffy site into something that will bring people back again and again.
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