Opus Interactive | If These Servers Could Talk

2 Business Reasons to Tweet

Monday, June 08, 2009 at 8:01 am by Jason Nuss

Twitter, what the heck is the hype?  Do I really want to know what my buddy is doing every second of the day?  Well, the answer is no, I don’t.  But what I can’t ignore is the massive amount of attention that Twitter is getting in the news and online among my friends.  

I get a lot of flak from teammates here at OI because, in a technical industry, I’m very much NOT technical.  In my role as the COO I manage business ops with expertise and focus in marketing, sales, leadership, and overall corporate culture.  But despite my technical difficulties, and the flak, I am an internet junkie.  I live in Facebook, LinkedIn, and now TWITTER.  I don’t know how it happened but I now am realizing the massive benefits to being involved in the Twitter community. 

Here are two “top of mind” reasons from a business perspective to be a “Tweeter”:

1.       The ability to follow influential people in your specific discipline and industry is absolutely invaluable.  The basic guts of a valuable “tweet” go something like this:   “Choffy We are proud to share the San Francisco Chocolate Salon’s New Product Award! http://is.gd/p72v” .  This tweet starts with the Twitterer’s profile name with a link to the profile page, then the message, and then usually a tweet will end with link to an article, video, pic, blog, etc.  The links are often weird looking but don’t be alarmed, they are purposely shortened by URL shortening service like http://www.tr.im in order to make more room for the message considering tweets are limited to 140 characters.  So here’s how to get the invaluable part from Twitterers:  Find people in your industry that are Twitterers and follow them.  There are like hundreds if not thousands.  You will undoubtedly be kept up to date, real time, on your industry’s happenings.  If you have a hard time finding people who are talking about your industry, go to http://search.twitter.com and search by keywords.  You will find people that are tweeting about your subject there and you can follow them.  You will be enlightened.

2.       The ability to push out content that positions me as an expert in my field and promotes my business is a great benefit of Twitter. Well can’t I do that from my blog or my website you ask?  I guess you could but what if you were to push out your latest blog post to your twitter network with the title of the article to promote it?  That is what I’m talking about.  I tweet a few times a day on topics that mean something to me.  As I do this I get other Twitterers that follow me because they like what I’m putting out there.  I try to bring relevant information to those who follow me and not spam them with a million different topics.  My suggestion is to be consistent on the topics you put out there.  I typically put out information around technology, managed hosting, and search marketing.  I work in these industries and those who follow me know it.  If I start posting stuff about Britney Spears I’ll become irrelevant and might lose my audience.  Stay focused and when you put out content people will look at it.  Eventually you will be able to drive people to a new product launch or to a an opportunity that might make sense to them and get you some business. 

Here are two reasons not to become a “Tweeter”:

1.       I’ve found myself saying “I just tweeted.”  This comment is usually followed someone say “What?” as if to ask if they should leave the room.

2.       I’ve found Twitter rather addicting.  If you can’t handle your spouse telling you to “Put the phone down!” then I might stay away from Twitter.  Granted, I didn’t become addicted until I realized the two benefits I listed above.

Even though there are reasons not to jump into Twitter, I think if you use it strategically, I think the “pros” will outweigh the “cons”.  So don’t wait any longer, join http://www.twitter.com.  If you do, follow me at http://www.twitter.com/jqnuss.  Happy Tweeting!  (Ok..so saying stuff like Happy Tweeting is another reason not to join.)

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