I’m still a rookie — I’ve only been using Twitter http://www.twitter.com seriously for about a month. But I thought that my observations might be useful to others who are amazed and mystified by Twitter’s popularity.
Once you sign up for Twitter, you can post messages of 140 characters of less whenever you like, as many messages as you like. The 140 characters is absolute. And the message box shows you letter by letter how many you have left.
What can you do with that? Why should you bother to type in a couple sentences announcing to the world what you are doing today? And why would you ever want to see messages like that written by strangers?
To get a feel for the potential, consider late-breaking news.
Unless you have a well-established news-oriented Web site or blog, when something happens unexpectedly that relates to you directly, you have no way (except email) to spread the word. If you post a new Web page with your observations and insights, it could take days, weeks, or months for that page to get into Google and other search engine indexes. And that would only be one item, not a continuous flow of updates. Also, short items tend to get very low priority in search engine results pages.
With Twitter, your posting is available for search as soon as you post it. That search could be for any word in your posting. And with tags (words preceded by #) you can put your spreading news into high gear, making it easy for interested folks to see all your updates.
Say there were an earthquake in Manitoba and you lived there and wanted to spread the word on what was happening. Just include #manitoba in a quick Twitter note. Then anybody who wanted to learn about it could just search for #manitoba and anybody wanting to add info or ask questions about it could include #manitoba in their posts. You create an online channel for disseminating information and the results are instantaneous.
Anybody can make a tag any time, without doing anything more than using it in a Twitter posting. I constantly use #kindle, #book, #books, #publishing. Think of search terms closely related to your business and see how much activity there is for #thisthatortheotherthing. Use ones that are very active to increase the size of your potential audience. Use ones that are rarely used, if ever, if you want to reach a targeted audience who you notify in advance.
If you are at a meeting and you know there were others who wanted to attend, but couldn’t, you could on your wireless laptop or Blackberry or iPhone or whatever connect to Twitter and type in your notes and related thoughts, consistently including the same tag e.g. #brilliantbiomedtalk and letting friends and colleagues know (by email or even by Twitter) that you are doing so.
Some people set up chat sessions that way, without the hassle of getting special chat software and having attendees download and install it. Just establish and publicize a unique tag (#___) and let people know the time and the topic.
If you are in the airline business and your company is losing money due to empty seats, at Twitter post special deals inviting last-minute customers. Include a tag like #airfare and a link for customers to buy their tickets at this special price. (Airlines do this already. Search for #airfare).
The ability to simply type in a web address and have that automatically converted to an active link can add lots of punch to your postings. What you put at Twitter may be just the headline, the attention getter, with the full text at a Web page or blog of yours (that very few people would find without the help of Twitter). And, yes, the link can be to a specific page at your online store where people can not only read, but also buy.
If you have an online store, Twitter is where you should post notices about new products and special deals and time-limited sales.
Yes, your messages have to be short, but you can use that limit creatively. Remember the old Burma-shave ads you used to see on highways — put together a series of short messages that lead to a memorable punchline.
If in your Twitter searches, you find people who seem knowledgeable about topics you are interested in, or who often post pointers and observations that you enjoy or find useful, just click to become a “follower” of that person. Then every time that person posts something, you’ll see it on your Twitter home page, without having to search.
If you’d like to keep your Twitter audience limited to people you know, decline others who ask to be your followers. Or, better still, for the folks you want to communicate privately with, become followers of them and ask them to become followers of you. Then you have the option of sending them direct messages over Twitter — a clear and simple message system, without either of you having to wade through floods of spam. Yes, you are limited to 140 characters per message, but you can break your message up into a series. Besides the 140 character limit is a good discipline, encouraging you to get immediately to what needs to be said.
If you’d like to check what I’m posting at Twitter, my ID there is http://twitter.com/richardseltzer
If you know of other interesting uses of Twitter, please let me know and I’ll post those ideas here in my blog. (I can’t just open the blog up for direct comments, because hundreds of automatically generated spam messages get sent here every day). And/or post your insights at Twitter with the tag #twitter.
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