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----------How to Demo TwitterGuy Kawasaki of How to Change the WorldGuy Kawasaki of How to Change the World |April 19th, 2009 - 11:28 AM(211) found this useful. Thanks for voting!One of the great challenges for anyone who loves Twitter is to show other people whythey should love it too. Often it’s like explaining something you find funny: “You had to bethere.” The contextual, ever-changing, and high-volume nature of Twitter makesexplaining it difficult. Here are ten tips to help you demo Twitter to your friends, family,and colleagues.1. Sales and support. Truly, Twitter is no longer predominantly about people tellingstrangers that their cat rolled over or that the line at Starbucks is long. You can start offby showing how businesses use Twitter. For example, AmazonDeals increasesAmazon’s revenue, and ComcastCares provides support to Comcast customers.Zappos promotes the caring brand image of the company because its CEO, Tony Hsieh,is doing the tweeting.2. Competitive intelligence. Another business use of Twitter is monitoring what peopleare saying about a company or its product. For example, look at this search of mentionsof P&G and Swiffer. You can also monitor what people are saying about the competition —for example, if you work for AT&T Wireless, you should watch what people are sayingabout Verizon with this search.* TWIBS provides a comprehensive list of companies using Twitter.* Here is my post about using Twitter as a Twool.* This PowerPoint presentation called “Twitter for Business” is helpful too.3. Additional resources: Personal passions. Like the business examples, the ability tofind people around the world, 24 x 7 who are discussing ones passions removes thescales from people’s eyes about Twitter. Here are some examples of Twitter searchesfor more personal topics:* Adoption* Fashion Week* Homeschooling* Audi* PMS within fifty miles of Menlo Park, California.
 
To create Twitter searches, go to Search.Twitter.com. This list of search operators isuseful for more sophisticated queries including those based on proximity to you.4. Twitter desktop applications. Using a web page to demonstrate Twitter is like usinga web interface to demonstrate email. For many people. a dedicated desktop clienthelps clarify the value the of Twitter because they can show the results of customsearches. I’ve found that Twhirl, Tweetdeck, and Seesmic Desktop are all useful fordemos and ongoing use of Twitter.5. Star struck. The good news and the bad news is that celebrities are now taking overTwitter. If the folks you’re showing Twitter to are impressed by celebrities, then showthem these stars: Lance Armstrong, Oprah, Ashton Kutcher, Britney Spears, and“Weird” Al Yankovic. Lance Armstrong is the coolest of the lot because he really showshis bikes, the snowman his kids made, and sends out appeals to try to recover hisstolen bike.6. Funny folks. There are a handful of people who tweet stuff that just make you laughyour ass off. If you’re showing Twitter to people with a bleeding edge humor, show themThe Bloggess and Penelope Trunk. Here’s an illustrative sample from Penelope: “I wokeup hung over: bad-parenting-hung-over from yelling at my sons before bed. Do momswho yell at boys create men who choose mean wives?”.7. Deep thinkers. The yang to the laugh-your-ass-off folks yin are people like JohnMaeda, David Allen, and Lawrence Lessig. John Maeda explores where design andtechnology merge.” David Allen created the “Getting Things Done” movement. LawrenceLessig is a Stanford law professor who covers law and technology. These folks willimpress your more cerebral, less star-struck friends.* Twitterati.alltop. This is a collection of the the last five tweets of the twitterati.(Disclosure: I am co-founder of Alltop.)* Retweetist. The single best way to determine the most interesting tweets is tosee who gets retweeted (think of this as forwarding tweets to others).* Twitalyzer. This site factors in people’s signal to noise ratio, generosity inretweeting, quantity of tweeting, and clout to provide a list of influential Twitter users.* Twittercounter. If you believe that popularity (that is, the number of followers) isan indication of quality, this site is useful.8. To find additional interesting people, use these resources: All the news that’s fit totweet. Showing Twitter to news hounds? Perhaps they want to be the first to know that aplane landed on the Hudson River. Here are three very good sources of breaking news:
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