“Tweet” Your Way to Connecting with Your Audience

Posted by Amanda Walsh-
Marci Alboher, author of the Shifting Careers blog with the New York Times, commented on the uses of the website, Twitter, at work in her post, Twitter Can Help At Work.

More and more professionals have honed in on the benefits of using Twitter at work. Past posts on the PRLawyer blog such as Do You Twitter? and Twitter for Fun & Customer’s Attention have shown that Furia Rubel has kept tabs on Twitter’s rise in popularity since last year.

I have just discovered Twitter myself and think it’s a great way to connect with other professionals. Simply “retweet” or reply to leave a comment and converse with other users.

The opportunities this Web site can offer are endless. Businesses can utilize this site to optimize traffic on their Web site and/or blog by “tweeting” when updates are posted.

To begin using Twitter, it takes two minutes to sign up and get your account going. First, use the search feature to search buzz words that relate to your industry and/or business. You can see if people are tweeting about you.

Start “following” people of interest to see their tweets on your own screen when you sign into the service. Be sure to listen to what is being said by others. It is important to sit back and take note before diving into the mix of “tweets.”

Some pros and cons regarding the use of Twitter are highlighted in Chris Brogan’s post of 50 Ideas on Using Twitter for Business. Some of my favorites are as follows:

Cons of Twitter
o It is time consuming.
o It has no purpose without a strategy or plan for its use.
o It is just for techies or web-savvy professionals.

Pros of Twitter
o It is a great way to gather opinions for polling purposes and research.
o It provides a faster breaking news source to get information out.
o It allows for companies to steer followers to positive topics.
o It can be used as a two-way customer service tool, going to the disgruntled consumer directly.
o Perfect way to post announcements of blog updates with links.

In my opinion people should not use Twitter to post the mindless activities of their day. I think Twitter is best harnessed when sharing ideas and (at the risk of sounding trite) “joining in the conversation.” Be aware of your purpose of using Twitter whether it is for your small company or if you are Tweeting on behalf of a large corporation.