I have recently been introduced to this exciting online networking application. My initial thoughts were that it was of little importance as a business tool. Many of the postings seemed to be about walking the dog or what people were having for tea – not too inspiring! The reason for this is that Twitter is foremost a social networking forum rather than business network.
Twitter though is gaining a strong business following and a number of key businesses within 4Networking have started to use it to good effect. The beauty of the system is that it is very simple, and that, I believe, will ensure its success. The basic concept is to answer the question: What are you doing now? You can only use up to 140 characters so each post is kept short and manageable. Brilliant.
When you add to this the ability to add links to websites, blogs, articles of interest you have the potential for some exciting possibilities.
Updating is easy and can be done from any internet connected computer or even your mobile phone so it has great flexibility.
So what business uses can it be put to? I have started interjecting snippets of useful tips within the social chatter. Free advice particularly on my area of knowledge which is garden design. I am not trying to sell anything simply demonstrating my knowledge and expertise to my followers. I can link these posts to my websiteor blog should anyone wish to gain a greater insight.
I have had assistance in getting up and running with Twitter in particular from Gary Gorman a fellow 4N member – there is plenty of additional functionality that can be added and he has been most helpful in getting me up and running. I am still learning and am enjoying the discoveries!
Another 4N member Julian Wellings has started to explore practical uses for it. Embedding the feed direct in to live web pages. Examples of this are for his tennis club and squash club where it is an easily updatable information link that members can view online or by follow on their own Twitter site.
A number of 4N members have embedded it in their forum signature so that it appears every time they make a posting – keeping people abreast of latest developments and boosting search engine rankings at the same time. Examples Lesley-Anne Hornbogen Mark Beaumont-Thomas Helen Silver & Brad Burton.
On a non business front it is also fun to keep up with the likes of John Cleese, Jeremy Clarkson, Barack Obama and Stephen Fry.
Will it have an impact on my business – too early to say but its free and fun so I’m going to keep going until it proves otherwise! I’m sure it will develop and more ideas will come in time. If you haven’t tried it yet why not join in?
Tags: business · development · opportunity · Success · Twitter2 Comments
Thanks for the namecheck Tim and good to see you up and running.
In a similar vein I wrote an article on how businesses could incorporate Twitter into their social marketing strategy at http://garygorman.blogspot.com/
[...] networking, Twitter Just recently I adopted Twitter as a means of networking. Why? In a previous blog I said I was unsure how Twitter could help me and my garden design business on the basis that it is [...]