What is Twitter?
Twitter is a free messaging platform whereby users express what they’re doing now in 140-characters or less. People who join Twitter, communicate and connect with others on Twitter who shares their interests or with those they wish to know more about. There’s a good chance Twitter is what your competitors are using, are you?
Twitter is an instant messenger when the person you’re communicating with, is actually online. Twitter is a social networking site where people interact with others as “followers,” which are people who interest you enough to follow and those on Twitter who are “following” you, because someone finds you interesting. The content is user-generated and for that reason, qualifies as a “micro-blogging” site. All of these features make Twitter, the hottest communication utility online today and the fastest growing.
Who should use Twitter?
Twitter is an excellent place to discover new things about pretty much anything that you may be interested in. You will learn how to think within the constraints of 140 characters and believe me, that is an art form in itself trying to get your message across in 140 characters when each space between words, count as 1-character.
Twitter is a place where you can get ideas about any topic, suggestions, questions and answers that are both thought-provoking and pointless, depending on who you’re following or whose “Tweet” (a post), you’re reading.
Blackberry users who are looking for a way to interact with Twitter while mobile can use the Twitter application, TwitterBerry. TwitterBerry allows Blackberry users to not only stay connected without having to use SMS (Short Messaging Service).
Why Twitter Matters?
Twitter matters if you want to establish a relationship with people who share your interests and Twitter matters if you want to learn more about topics you really don’t have an interest in, but are just curious. Twitter matters because with everything in life, relationships matter and Twitter is all about exploring relationships, building relationships and interacting with those who are doing the same things, broadening their relationships.
Twitter matters because it is an excellent communication tool for getting your message out there to an ever-increasing audience. Take the recent events in Iran concerning the protest over election results. It seemed that no matter what the Iranian authorities did to suppress the media; Twitter users were able to get news about what was going on within the country still got out to the rest of the world.
Twitter can get your message out to the rest of the world, even if they aren’t a member of Twitter. Most of the major international news agencies have a Twitter account and more than a few major corporations maintain and post frequently to their Twitter account to keep others abreast to what’s going on in their companies and provide updates on new products and services. To see a list of some of the brands using Twitter, go here. So, why does Twitter matter? Twitter matters because if you aren’t on Twitter, there is a good chance that your competitor is using it.
When Do You Implement Twitter?
You implement Twitter when you want to establish a relationship with people who share your interest and you implement Twitter when you want to have a relationship with people you’re not particularly interested in, but follow anyway because of unique or rewarding content they seem to frequently produce. You implement Twitter when you have a need for information on subject ideas; by typing in the keyword you want to search for, to get additional information about. One particular unique and effective way to get information about something on Twitter is to do a survey.
There are many Twitter applications online that you can use for setting up a survey and listed are some of the favorites that users find easy enough to navigate without any serious learning curve. Here are two that I think that you’ll enjoy using.
TwtPoll is an application that I use from time to time, when I want to find out what’s on the minds of Twitter users. This information helps me to develop topics in which to write about, knowing that I have an interested audience in advance of publication.
PollDaddy is another one of my favorite Twitter Poll Tools from the company that brought the world, WordPress. Both TwtPoll and PollDaddy give a visual, colored, pie chart representation of your poll results and both are free.
Where Twitter Works Best?
Twitter works best when you are establishing a relationship with others online. Twitter works best if you want to interact with others online for the purposes of sharing your knowledge about things you and others are interested in.
Twitter works best if you want to share something interesting with your “followers” and you hope that they “retweet,” your link to your interesting material so that it becomes viral.
Twitter works best if you’re looking for new relationships to add to your contact list and if you’re trying to reconnect with old contacts that you’ve been out of touch with for various reasons.
Twitter works best if you have new, updated or revised content or media that you think that your “followers” will find interesting enough to “retweet,” to their “followers,” hence giving you another opportunity to have your content or media to go viral.
How To Best Use Twitter?
Twitter is great for getting your brand, which is yourself, known to a wider audience, who may not have learned about your existence otherwise. Twitter is the perfect platform to host surveys or polls, contests and information about you, what you do, but only if and when someone asks. You’ll be amazed at the things you can learn on Twitter when you aren’t really looking to read someone else’s Tweet.
Twitter is great for getting traffic to your website or blog, especially if you’re using a Twitter application like, TweetThis if you’re using the WordPress blog platform. TweetThis allows you to send your blog posts to your Twitter account, so that your “followers” can see your updates.
Twitter gives you an excellent opportunity to find out what Twitter users are thinking, their opinions, and additional information about their wishes or desires that you can tailor for your relationship and marketing needs. You can discover new trends and generate ideas on Twitter that you might not have otherwise thought about and share unique and interesting content that you can share with others. If, you haven’t already, you should be using Twitter if for no other reason, that your competition may be.