Subscribers

Back in November, I wrote a post about Twitter and was having a very hard time wrapping my head around it’s usefulness.

I must confess, I’ve been spending some time with it and think that I might be turning into a convert. Sure there are a lot of social tools out there, and Facebook allows you to share items and status updates with your friends pretty easily; but what I’ve found is that while Twitter seems to do the same thing, it does it in a different fashion. With only 150 characters (including spaces) to update what you’re doing, it’s a very convenient way of sending quick updates to friends and colleagues on various things you’re doing in your day.

I liken it to the new grapevine for the technological age. I hear about new blog posts people have enjoyed and/ or posted. I also find it’s been helping me prioritize which articles from the numerous industry newsletters I should read first. It’s also been great at keeping me in the loop with other happenings within the industry and across the globe.

In general, I have to say I feel, well, more connected.

I struggled in my previous post understanding how this could be considered a great marketing tool. And I think I finally figured it out. Like anything, Twitter is not a tool that should be used on its own, but if used as part of an overall marketing strategy to the right audience, I actually think it could really work. Now in terms of specific ideas I have – I won’t give that away, afterall, being in the business myself I think I might have to save those gems for my clients.

Here’s a few quick tips on how to make the most of your Twitter experience (keeping in mind I’ve only been a Twitterer for a short while).

- Explore the Twitter tools and applications available and incorporate Twitter into your daily life, such as your blog or Facebook.
- Use a different update program. Rather than simply staying logged into Twitter’s website, download one of the many add ons that allow you to update on the fly (like Messenger). I currently use Twitterfox for Mozilla.
- Import your address books to allow you to easily find friends and colleagues who use the service.
- Once you start following people, look to see who they are following (not in a creepy, stalkerish way) to look for those you might want to network with.
- And Lastly, don’t be afraid to update your status often and/ or begin conversations with others – about things that might be relevant to all of you.

Happy Twittering…. Oh and and if you want to, go ahead and Follow Me.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 23rd, 2008 at 4:41 pm and is filed under Twitter, online marketing, viral marketing, web applications, web marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.