The Mystery that is Twitter
There has been a lot of talk lately in the blogosphere and the Public Relations world about Twitter. Sounds like a small bird sound or maybe a piece of electronic equipment, but what is it really and is there any value to using it in marketing? Chatter will take a look at Twitter over the next two blogs to help make some sense out of this new buzzword.
This month we’ll provide a brief overview of Twitter and how it came to be and, in our next blog posting, we will explore how Twitter can be used for business purposes.
Twitter is the most popular program of a new social media technique that has been coined micro-blogging. This is a term that basically translates to a mini blog. Instead of using full posts the way a blog does, Twitter allows the author to communicate thoughts in fewer than 140 characters – sort of like speed blogging, or, for those a bit less technical, like texting a running dialogue on your cell phone.
Twitter does have some similarities to many blogs because it does not restrict the type of content the author can put forth. It can be a personal narrative or it can be a link to a new Web site that was found that the author thinks would be useful to his/her audience. The premise of having followers is also similar to a blog. These followers will receive updates when the author posts a new entry (and those who follow you on Twitter opt-in for these updates).
Twitter, like most of the new Social Media tools, was originally built for internal communication purposes. It was a research project that was spearheaded by the company Obvious. It then was split off into its own separate entity and launched to the public.
For the most part, people started using Twitter the same way they would use an instant messaging platform. It’s also similar to the way that you can post status updates to Facebook and other social networks to let your friends know what you are doing at that very moment.
Twitter also has a platform-wide search engine that allows you to search for key terms that you may be interested in.
Twitter’s primary advantage over a traditional blog is its immediacy for information dissemination or gathering. If you have a dedicated group of followers, as soon as you send a “twit,” they instantly receive your update. Its appeal is quickly spreading and next month we will look at some examples of how Twitter has been used in some marketing programs and how we will be incorporating into our client porfolios, as well.
Stay tuned…