Twitter Better
Many of us have heard of Twitter ( www.twitter.com )and some might even have friends,family or employees using it. Twitter is a micro-blogging site that aims to answer onequestion, “What are you doing?” In this simple question and in the 140 characters youhave to respond, are great opportunities. Micro-blogs are a breed of Web site that have become popular as of late, but the idea of micro-blogging has been around since the firstsocial media sites opened their virtual doors.Micro-blogging started as “Status Updates” on sites likeFacebook (www.facebook.com)andMyspace (www.myspace.com)to let friends know what you are doing, right now.These short messages are fed into the news feeds of your friends so that they alwaysknow what you are doing when they log on. From a marketing perspective this instantupdate equates to top-of-mind awareness. You always want your customer to be thinkingof you, your product or your service, what’s new and why they love it. Micro-blogginggives users a constant reminder that your company or product exists and gives themspecific messages about your company in a one-to-one environment. Users feel thatmicro-blogs speak directly to them, especially if the company can strike up aconversation with the user.Twitter took this single aspect of social networking and created a world around it. Theyturned it into a perfect tool for marketing a business, person or product. Users look toTwitter for news and create their own customizable news feeds based on who they follow.As a Twitter user you are not exposed to the updates of every user in the Twitterspehere,instead you choose who you want to follow and only their updates show up in your feed.Twitter currently has over eight million user in the U.S. and has grown 33 percent inFebruary alone and 1,382 percent from last year to nowaccording to Nielsen(http://www.marketingcharts.com/interactive/twitter-posts-meteoric-1384-yoy-growth-8428/nielsen-unique-visitors-twitter-age-demographic-february-2009jpg/).Its audience isdiverse and includes government officials, teenagers and the media. The most interestingdemographic data is that the largest age demographic on Twitter is 35-49 according to Nielsen. This is the first social media application to really take off with both older andyounger audiences. With such a huge audience, who also happen to be holding their ownconversations, how do you make sure you get noticed?
Twitter Tips
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A post or “tweet” should fall into one of two categories: communicate an entiremessage clearly and quickly, or be a great headline. Never try to squeeze amessage that requires time and finesse into 140 characters. Craft your message inas many words as it takes, and thencreate a link ( www.tinyurl.com )to the entiremessage posted somewhere else online and put that after the headline of the tweet.
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Make sure you are linking. Twitter offers some great tools to help you stayconnected both on their site and others. Link messages together by usingTwitter’s
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