The Beauty, Secrets and Utility of Twitter for Business

By B.L. Ochman
Follow me on Twitter

Lots of people laugh at Twitter, call it a waste of time and worse, and, that's just fine with me. While they're laughing, I'm learning, listening, meeting, and enjoying a global view of an endless flow of creative thought - 140 characters at a time.

Approaching a million users, Twitter has become, says Alex Iskold at ReadWriteWeb, "a global, distributed, multi-platform communication channel, a web-wide conversation..."

Like a lot of other people who frequent my Twitter circle, I blog less, and read my email only after I check in on Twitter. Within about five minutes after I asked today, fifteen people told me that for most of them, as it is for me, a Direct Message (DM) in Twitter is often read before email. Kristen Forbriger, Paull Young, Hugh Macleod, Anjali Ramachandran, Chris Lynn, and Donna Papacosta are among the Tweeters (Twitts, Tweeties?) who said a Twitter DM is the most reliable way to reach them.

That's true for me if I'm logged into Twitter. But, much as I love Twitter, I have to log out to seriously get work done. So, despite my addiction to Twitter, I'm with Sheila Scarborough, who Tweeted, "Fastest way to reach me is cell phone; that thing with voices. :) OK, then prolly email, then Twitter DM, last is FB message." And that's the beauty of it - when you come back, you'll almost always find a conversation worth joining, or at least following.

If you're a marketer and you're not on Twitter, you're missing an important way to understand and participate in social media. As Mike Trojano blogged participation is "the key to understanding not only social networking, but the spiraling number of people who participate in it every day."

Robert Scoble wrote yesterday that the secret to Twitter is to "follow more people than follow you so that you constantly get a new stream of ideas, events, stories." Easier said than done, since he follows and is followed by more than 15,000 people.

For me, and the extraordinary group of smart people with whom I interact daily, Twitter has become:

o a major source of business news
o a quicker way to find out what's important today than my feed reader
o a place to find out what the people I'm interested in are finding interesting
o a source of live blogging from conferences and other events
o an excellent source of experts on various technical topics
o a place to build relationships through common interests
o direct access to many of my business heroes
o a place to (selectively) pimp my blog posts
o an international IM platform
o a place to take a break around the virtual water cooler
o a lot of fun

Then there's David Murray, at Ragan.com seriously ADD-challenged apparently, who tried and rejected Twitter in just one day. Hey, David, we miss you. :>)

Even David Binkowski, who told me last fall that I was "ignorant" for recommending Twitter to senior marketers because it's "is nothing more than a tactic for specific audiences at best," has entered nearly 1700 Tweets since he joined. Follow him at http://twitter.com/dbinkowski. I do. :>)

Related: How To Write Kickass Twitter Posts

What Marketers Need to Know About Twitter

Twitter isn't chat. it's conversation. sort of...

Twitter Dm has become one of the best ways to get my attention, definitely. Especially because the message has to be short… I've got my twiter account set up so the DMs also come into my email inbox (which has an alert sound) and I do read DMs more readily than actual emails.

This despite the fact that I've *always* hated IM. There's only two people I instant message and that's only because it's the only way to reach them most of the time.

Phones are good too, most of the time. But I do actually skip phones these days when I'm busy.

Twitter for news and research works pretty well for me too. I've been way to busy for my RSS feeds lately, but most of the really important news comes through on twitter.

I have Twitter set up to come to email also, but i turned off the sound alert long ago bec. it was driving me bananas.

i kind of like IM, but only use it with a couple of people. I also like the fact that twitter posts are quick and short. I think the fact that you have only 140 characters makes people take care about what they write.

I think you need to mine Twitter if you plan to use it for business intelligence or as another channel for communications. You can find RSS feeds for every user and also set up alerts for terms and voices. In fact, if you are spending more than 30 minutes a day flicking back and forth with Twitter screens, you probably need to set up and trust an aggregator to better focus your attention. If you don't have a system, the traditional channels like email or corporate messaging are going to suffer.

My train of thought:
Twitter DM = email (since DM comes to my gmail), so I get two alerts for a DM. One alert for a direct email.

I do get an email for a FB message too, but usually won't reply right away because that means logging onto Facebook, which always leads to many distractions.

I agree with your list of Twittrabutes (Twitter attributes?), and I'll add a couple:

- a place to practice succinct communication
- a source of instant feedback on any given topic
- a way to always feel connected to the world

The best thing about Twitter is that every piece of viable news is fresh and you can write back to the people you are following, even though you don't know them very well. Quick & concise. Instant messenger to the whole world.

It's easier to write one, quick sentence on a subject than to write a blog post. You get insightful data from the people knowledgeable in a field without them wasting time. You also get to know the names of their pets and how cold it is in Toronto :).
http://twitter.com/WebFreelancer

Well, social media will only be useful for "instant feedback on any topic" when there are LOTS of people following me and I'm popular/important enough worthy for a response.

This is where KNOWING the people in my community is important. If they know me, they're more comfortable in providing feedback, even if it's just a "I don't know" message.

I tweeted this: "1st Twitter, then cell phone, then desk phone, then Facebook, then email. Used 2B different, but office forced switch 2 Outlook"

The fuller story is logistics. I work all over campus. What phone to call to find me? Good question. Cell phone? Sometimes forget to bring it or turn it off. Email? Used to be the best way to reach me, but since switch to Outlook find email totally dysfunctional and a waste of effort. Terribly frustrating. Facebook I tend to check once or twice a day. Twitter I check more often, BUT, here's the good part. If I am not in Twitter, it sends me a cell phone text message for DMs or an email. So Twitter DMs have three times the chance of reaching me -- either I'll see them in Twitter, or they will go to my phone, or they will go to my email. Wherever I am, it will reach me. :) Yahoo! (If you want to be reached, that is.)

JeanLucR tweeted this post, and that for me is the beauty of Twitter. My twitterverse is global and diverse group. I received tweets in german, french, spanish, dutch and English. My world view is enlarged as I learn in 140 characters what's important around the world. Can Twitter be distracting? Yes, but so can email, the phone or your office. I have found great value in Twitter both personally and professionally. It is a welcome adjunct to my other communication tools. Thank you B.L for an informative and comprehensive post. Now I must go share it with the tweeps!

Karen

Bernie - i agree about the need to aggregate but i am not so sure i want to give my login & other information to creators of APIs after some bad experiences. How do you know who to trust?

John - I think Twitter has replaced daily RSS reading for a lot of people.

Kristin - I love the word "Trittabutes". we need a glossary of Twitter terms. Twitterati, Tweets, Twits...

DSS - the succinct conversations are what i love. any more detail needed can be gotten in DM, email or IM. or that thing with the receiver. what's it called again?

Rudy - not sure I agree. I often get feedback from people I don't know. have made many friends that way on twitter. it's a matter of how you ask, relevance of the question, timing, and how often you respond to others...in other words, being part of the community

PF - i, frankly, don't always want to be reached. :>)

Karen - following you now on Twitter!

Great post BL.
Twitter is instantaneous, immediate and lightweight.
140 characters means restraint is essential.
Brevity is power!

Twitter DMs can be fired off incredibly quickly.

Drue - Twitter isn't always lightweight. But yes, brevity is power. And one must think tight to write short.

Great post, BL. For the record, Twitter DM is the best way to reach me ONLINE -- AFTER the telephone. When I am deep into a project, I turn off all online notifications. Sometimes I do switch off the ringer on the phone, but not as often as I should. ;-)

I am amazed at how useful I find Twitter; a year ago I was teasing my social-media friends who were using it. Never say never.

everyone is talking about twitter, while I'm clueless till I read this article. Thanks for posting this BL

Nice observation, thanks!
Your post is so fascinating. I have heard a lot about this, but didn't really get a chance to see this. Appreciate it.

Had I seen this post earlier I would have commented sooner. BL, you were right and I was partially wrong. Twitter has reached critical mass where marketers need to pay attention and taking it a step further, create a strategy for engagement on/with it.

I also want to issue a public apology for that comment. It was snarky and uncalled for. You're definitely not ignorant; in fact the same could be said about me for making that statement.

Being engaged and not fake is tremendously important. I've found that just following a bazillion followers has gotten me no where. What value would they have in following me?

Here's the of the strategies I've applied:

http://www.jesseliebman.com/2008/12/15/captain-planet-meets-twitter-strategy