Twitter. Is it a useful business tool, an effective example of social media or is it simply the self indulgent past-time of celebs and people with too much time and too little to contribute? Design-Design checks out this curious bird.
Twitter was the result of a one day brainstorming session by the podcasting company Odeo to generate ideas for direction in a creative slump during 2006. The microblogging site is constantly mentioned in the media as a great way to be part of a thriving social network and keep up to date with what is happening in the world by simply typing your current status into a box in a browser window allowing 140 character sentences. Enter your status as often as you like. Discuss what you like. Link to whoever you like. If other social networks are anything to go by, this sounds like it could be another social disaster for anyone around 12-18 years old.
Does it have any use for business users? Well, I am as skeptical as anyone that Twitter has any use at all in the business world….however, I am currently experimenting with the social networking site to see if I can generate any additional interest in my design blog [here] or my portfolio website at www.simcoe.co.uk.
Three Simple Rules
My recommendation, if you want to use Twitter for business, is to follow these three simple rules:
- Have something of use to say to your followers. Make it relevant, interesting and professional and preferably relevant to some quality research or finding. As a business professional it is important to find out the facts and figures about your industry on a daily basis, note important events in the diary such as trade shows, read quality news or watch relevant documentaries. If you’re serious in business then finding something you’ve discovered that is of value to your listeners, even just once everyday, should be no problem at all.
- Only Retweet [publish someone elses Tweet to your own readers] if you think that it is absolutely necessary that your audience knows about it. We live in a generation where people express their creativity by collecting and displaying other people’s creative expertise as a montage eg MySpace. Your audience needs to trust that they are not just getting a random retweet plucked from the general steady stream of drivel because you’ve got nothing to say.
- Keep it professional. We’re not all interested in Steven Fry’s infinitely detailed details. We don’t want to hear about the great curry you had last night or how you’re now suffering the consequences. Quality, facts, informed opinion and valuable expression are the key to success as far as I can tell. I measure this by the way people I trust seem to be using the system and what I have gained professionally from this.
Useful Links
Below are some useful links for Twitter users:
- http://listorious.com/tags – is a great way to search for Twitter users based upon keywords or tags. If you are interested in designing or photography, simply follow the relevant tags to find users with similar interests. Maybe they have something useful to share? Maybe not.
- http://www.tweetdeck.com/ – here you can download a desktop based tool called Tweetdeck
Summary
Twitter can be useful and can possibly generate the new links and trust in your brand name that you are working towards. As with any social media, giving the public a voice usually results in finding out that you really don’t want to hear what the majority have to say [take examples from some of the most popular tags reaching number one in most searched such as 'thuglife' or other similarly grim topics] – but for those attempting to use more than two brain cells and use the internet at the same time, there may be some milage.
< Home >
Leave Your Response