The Twitter Revolution

Social messaging has taken a whole new form with the advent of the Twitter revolution. The most recent and popular examples of how effective Twitter has been can be seen in the twitter activity for Obama’s Presidential Campaign and the Mumbai terror attacks.

As LA Times reported – “During the attacks, users from around the world posted tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of short notes, updates, musings and links to the latest information on Mumbai — many, if not most, of the facts coming from mainstream news outlets.”

Another interesting story is how James Karl, a student , ‘twittered’ his way out of Egyptian Jail. He was arrested while covering an anti government protest. A one word twitter update sent by him got his friends alerted and eventually led to his rescue.

The fastest and simplest way to connect with an audience, Twitter has grown from being just a social messaging tool to a powerful business tool.

Online shoe retailer Zappos has experienced how Twitter has been helpful in the brand building process for the company. To quote Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos – “I've talked a lot in the past about how we've used Twitter at Zappos for building more personal connections with both our employees and our customers. In fact, we recently debuted on FORTUNE MAGAZINE's annual "100 BEST COMPANIES TO WORK FOR" list, and they began and ended the article talking about our use of Twitter to build more personal connections with people. That in itself is its own reward that has both personal and business benefits.”

The concept of ‘twittering’ has been criticised by many but maybe following certain rules will help in using Twitter to your advantage. Here are some tips from pearlanalytics on how Twitter can be used as a viable marketing tool –

1.Post something useful. You see a lot of people tweeting play-by-plays of what they had for lunch. Quite frankly, no one really cares, and you are simply clogging up my timeline. Tweet a link to an interesting article you found, or a poll question, a new blog posting, or in my case, I like to tweet Website Analyzer scores that were recently run.
2. Don’t spam people. Twitter’s version of spam is you going out and following a bunch of people you don’t know for any reason, and hoping they will follow you back. Your followers will should grow organically. There is nothing wrong with following people with similar interests, but let them know how you found them.
3. Update moderately, but consistently. I think of Tweeting like blogging. You wouldn’t fill up your blog with hundreds of meaningless posts, right? Don’t over-tweet, but don’t under-tweet either. 5-10 tweets per day seems like a good number, and if you are posting meaningful stuff people care about, that is probably a tough goal.
4. Don’t use Twitter to chat. Some get confused between Twitter and chat. Don’t have a one-on-one conversation with your buddy - no one will know what you are talking about, so the more of that you do, the less they will pay attention to your tweets, and will likely “un-follow” you.

So, if you haven’t joined the Twitter bandwagon yet, you might be missing something.