With all the buzz about Social Media and Social Networking, it’s easy to get caught up in which sites to be on. This is the first in a series of blog posts about the top sites that we’ve found, used and worked with and think would be of value to you, too.
Twitter is the leading “micro-blogging” platform out there which allows you to post updates, or “tweets” as they’re called, in 140 characters or less. The elegance is the forced brevity.
A tweet, being only 140 characters maximum, is naturally shorter than a blog post, and are typically posted far more often.
The basic concept behind twitter is that you “follow” people whose updates are of interest to you, and people who find you interesting follow you. The result is a network of people, interconnected by interest.
From a business stand point, Twitter can be used to stay in contact with your customers and prospects. In fact, Dell Outlet sold over $1,000,000 in 2008 through Twitter alone. Other big names include Starbucks, Comcast, REI, JetBlue and more all use Twitter to stay in touch with customers, build relationships with prospects, handle customer support, and offer promotions.
To get started with Twitter:
- Setup your account on Twitter.com
- Upload your photo
- Update your bio, website and location
- Start following some people. (Start with Jeremy Shapiro and Robert Estupinian)
- Start tweeting
What should you “tweet”?
Try splitting your Tweets between the following 4 categories:
- Links to resources and articles of interest to your prospects / clients
- Updates on what you, personally, are up to
- Replies to other people’s tweets
- “Re-Tweers” (or RTs) of other peoples tweets that are of interest.
Stay tuned for the next post on other social media tools and resources that we like, recommend and think would be of value to you, too.