Must I really explain how twitter has exploded?  It has jumped over 400% in userbase this past year, and is talked about on the news probably more than any other website in the world.  More than just a social media microblogging platform, Twitter has become an amazingly powerful business tool.  While companies have started to use Twitter on a more frequent basis, even those who have adopted it have made mistakes in how to effectively use it.

This is what set me out to write a blog series on how to use Twitter for your business.  I hope after reading these posts you can start using Twitter to your advantage, and get the leading edge for your business.

What Is Twitter?

Twitter is what is called a ‘microblogging’ website.  Unlike blogs, microblogs are restricted in the number of letters that can fit in an individual post.  For twitter, your posts, or as twitter calls them, ‘tweets’ can only be 140 characters long.  This creates an interesting dynamic for expressing yourself online, because it doesn’t allow room for padding or extra fluff in an informational post.  Its right to the point, and usually, much less than even the 140 character limit.

Why should I use twitter?  Who cares what I am doing?

Well these are both excellent questions, but I would like to immediately address the latter.  The truth is, that no matter who you are, someone will care about what you have to say.  It’s almost impossible to be on twitter for a week and not get at least one follower.  But this doesn’t even matter, because most people do not use Twitter for its inherent question, “What are you doing?”.  In this blog post, we will be focusing on how to use twitter for your business, not your social life.  So more often than not you won’t be posting anything about what you are currently doing, but rather what your current business has to say to the world.

You should use Twitter because it is an incredibly powerful marketing tool. Period.  If you gain enough followers, you at anytime could instantaneously send a message to hundreds of people, and this is the central theme of Twitter: you have a large audience.  With a company blog, your firm doesn’t send out your updated post to everyone who is interested in your business, you are just allowing whoever has subscribed to your blog’s RSS feed.  Plus, your blog entry is long.  Twitter messages are short and sweet and get the message across.  I think we can all agree time is always of the essence in today’s market, and having a short personal message sent to individuals interested in your business is a great method to send a message without loosing interest.  There is no room to loose interest!

There are also alot of applications for the use of twitter.  In addition to the above example of just using twitter for marketing, you could also use it for your firms internal communication.  Giving all of your employees twitter accounts creates a network that is fast, private, short, and concise.

Also, as will be discussed in a future post, one of the greatest uses of Twitter is using it for Public Relations.  Monitoring Twitter with the search function will allow you to know where your product stands, how is your customer support, how many need help with troubleshooting, or who didn’t get your latest newsletter for whatever reason.  These are just examples, but your immediate response to user’s complaining about your company could turn them around to loving your company.

Subscribe to my blog to see the next installment, Getting Started with Twitter.