In a recent article Information Week argues twitter is about news, not social media. What I notice is there is a lot of confusion on how to make the best use of twitter in your personal, professional and business life. And some people don’t get twitter at all. How can you say anything in just 140 characters? You would be surprised, and amazed at what you can do with, what is reckoned to be, the fastest growing social network on the planet.
In the article Antone Gonsalves cites research that found most tweeters disseminate news and events. In other words they are broadcasting. There is much truth in this statement; it’s much easier to broadcast to your followers what you want them to know about with links to articles, videos or webpages. Or simply talk about what you’re doing. After all twitter’s text entry box asks ‘what are you doing?’ Actually they’ve changed it. It now says ‘what’s happening?’ on my home twitter page. Or ‘what’s up?’ on my browser’s twitter plugin. But broadcasting is the old paradigm.
Penny Power from ecademy says if google is a search engine for knowledge, twitter is a search engine for people. Twitter is full of people, millions of them, and you can easily find people just like you, who like what you like, are interested in what you are interested in and want to talk about what you want to talk about. And finding them is easy. Twitter’s search tool is very powerful or you can sign up with Mr Tweet and have them make suggestions for people you can follow; a little like facebook friend suggestions.
So, how can you make the best of twitter. Start by broadcasting often what you want to talk about. People will find you because they are interested in your message and follow you. Follow them back. Then use the powerful people search tools to find the audience you want. Once you have a following you can segregate them into lists and even find ready-made lists of people just like you on Listorious. Talk about what you like, who you like, what you’re reading or watching. Tweeters love videos.
Broadcasting will get you noticed, but this is social media. Now you need to practice social networking, which is all about conversation. Engage with your followers. Find the conversations of interest to you from your followers and add your perspective or opinion. If a tweet is good, retweet it. It’s easy to do and is a form of flattery. And if you think you can’t use twitter to find clients for your business, think again. Jim Turner, a successful copywriter, does just that. And he tells you how he does it with twitter, facebook and linkedin in his ebook. It will cost you $99 but I’ve read it and I can recommend it if you want to learn more.
You need a strategy to make the most of twitter
