If you’ve been using the internet, most likely you’ve heard about Twitter. It’s perhaps the hottest social media platform on the internet today. Even president Barack Obama used it to help him win voters during his election campaign. Many people use Twitter to share information and spread the news. Even the fortune 500 companies use it to suck in thousands of targeted customers.

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There 3 things I like most about this course:

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Conclusion:

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Hey, even President Barack Obama is on Twitter!  So is Oprah Winfrey.

No wonder it’s now a ‘cool fad’ to be seen and heard on this community cum news-gathering site. Basically, Twitter is a free social messaging utility for staying connected in real-time.

Twitter junkies abound.

Users come on board to engage each other in snappy conversations that borders on triviality such as what they are having for dinner, why they are getting a new pet and some other ‘mumbo jumbo’ that only the initiated can understand.

Some are tweeting about a great article they have just posted hoping for a rush of visitors to their sites or marketing some new products. Some just want to socialize and swap gossips about what’s hot and what’s not – even about their personal lives.

Well, it’s up to your imagination and inclination to see how you want to utilize Twitter to your satisfaction and advantage. Be aware that whatever you tweet will be read by a huge audience. Sometimes, negative vibes take over and one may lose a job because of his or her Twitter comments. It happened to a woman who, on being offered a job at Cisco, posted a Tweet saying she would hate the work, which was discovered bya Cisco employee. Goodbye, job!

It’s also a great hunting ground for spammers and computer worms as happened recently when the Twitter site came under attack.

Businesses are also turning to Twitter in a big way. They see Twitter as an online communications tool to promote company news, social interactions, mentoring, sales and marketing and more. With millions of users roaming across the Twitter site, it makes sense to them that it’s a great place to establish brand names, gain exposure, boost public relations and all that jazz that business types always look out for.

The fact that Twitter’s popularity has grown by leaps and bounds can be attributed to media attention. Since February, Twitter grew by 131%, according to Comscore Media Matrix data. That represents a percentage growth of more than five million visitors to Twitter. Most of Twitter’s users are in the 35-49 age group.

In a blog post, ComScore analyst Andrew Lipsman wrote that media coverage had something to do with Twitter’s upsurge, citing that Newt Gingrich had used Twitter to criticize President Obama for his handling of the Somali pirate situation. “”Like it or not, Twitter is quickly revolutionizing the way our entire news ecosystem operates, from journalist to consumer, and blurring the lines in between,” Lippman wrote.

Recently, during three by-elections taking place simultaneously in Malaysia, news site Malaysian Insider was tweeting the latest vote counts coming through to keen followers. Those with laptops, drinking latte at some coffehouse, were checking on the tweets and tweeting among friends as they followed the polls.

Twitter’s new cool has also made it a target of Google. There were whispers that Microsoft may be interested, too. Well, that’s what you get on the grapevine. We have yet to see Big Goog make its move. Will Big Goog gobble up Twitter? Or will the little bird, I mean Twitter, soar like an eagle on its own wings.

Now, there’s a culture and language to follow if you want to be a savvy Twitter aficionado. Learn to speak ‘twitterese’ once you become a follower, be a good conversationalist and have good manners.

Whatever Twitter is, there are those who have become addicted to it and those who just don’t get it why they are limited to a 140-character tweet message. To be honest, I’m not much of a tweeter. Although I have signed up with Twitter more than a year, I still don’t get that twitch to twirl around the site. Does that make me a twit?

Such is the power of Twitter as an opinion former (or at least influencing opinion) that even Fortune 500 companies have appointed “Official Social Networking Managers” to continuously keep their brands in the minds of its Twitter followers, expanding on the traditional brand building and brand managing efforts, boosting sales and creating more loyal followers in the process.

The internet being the internet showing no favour just because you are a Fortune 500 company, Twitter has brought tremendous power to the smaller internet and traditional marketer as well, where the small operator can generate just as much traffic to his/her website and create an on-line brand, using the same techniques Fortune 500 companies do. However, some Twitter techniques work better than others do (especially seeing it is a SOCIAL networking platform), and those who manage to tap into the social psyche more effectively than their counterparts can be assured of more traffic and a better response to their Twitter “campaign”. Here is possibly where Fortune 500 companies have the edge – they can afford to employ a Psych graduate (or two or three) or even Post Graduates to manage their Twitter campaigns, especially when it comes to shaping public opinion or influencing netizens’ perceptions about virtually anything – from politicking to introducing a new flavour of crisps.

The REAL power of Twitter lies in that it incorporates what Seth Godin calls “Permission Marketing“. Instead of the traditional “Interruption Marketing” where what you were doing gets interrupted by a marketing message (think of those television commercials during your favourtie sitcom), Permission Marketing is marketing you CHOOSE to be exposed to. Because you choose to hear this marketing message (by, in the Twitter vocabulary, FOLLOWING someone or a brand on Twitter), you are already predisposed to listen to what the marketing message is, and far more likely to ACT on such marketing. Suddenly a marketer is no longer an interruption, he has become a friend that tells you about a product or service because you ASKED him to.

Understanding the power and basic principles of a Twitter campaign is one thing. Executing it effectively can be quite another. Remember the Fortune 500 Psych Grads? They were specifically employed because they understand the human psyche, how we react to external stimuli, especially in terms of how we perceive a brand or “value”, and can employ 140 characters to achieve a desired outcome, one tweet at a time. Great marketing if you can afford the price tag.

Most small and medium companies however, CAN’T afford the price tag, and have to opt for the “self-help” option. The “one man show” almost CERTAINLY will have to opt for the self-help option, and here we meet the first real barrier to making use of Twitter to generate sales. How do you get people to FOLLOW what you are saying tweet for tweet, so that you can build relationships with them to the point where they trust you enough to act on your recommendations? More importantly, how can you be interesting enough that those who stumble across you will actually tell all THEIR friends about you – the RETWEET phenomenon? And how will you convince these new readers to become followers?

A great number of very informative articles and books have seen the light all about exactly these issues, and can go a long way in helping you create and manage an effective Twitter campaign. In the end an effective campaign boils down to relationships, and Twitter is all about building relationships based around common interests. In this respect human nature has not changed much since the dawn of time – we like those who like us (and think like us) and like the same things we do. The psychological term is “Set”, defined as “Readiness to think or respond in a predetermined way when confronted with a problem or stimulus situation”, and like our offline relationships, our Twitter relationships will be better when we are within our own “set”. The first step in using Twitter as a business tool then, is to carefully design your Biography on Twitter, as this is what other people will judge you (and your suitability to be followed) by. Further to this, choose the people YOU will follow carefully, as even in cyberspace, you will be judged by the company you keep. Keep within your “set”.

The question still remains though, how do you get people to follow you in the FIRST PLACE? Make use of all your other communications to alert people to the fact that you are on Twitter – as part of your email signature, on your business cards and letterheads, on every blog post and website you create content for; even word of mouth works very well to generate a following on Twitter.

Once you have a following, treat them like gold, especially if you hope to sell to them at some point in the future. Make sure that at LEAST 90% of your tweets are NOT sales orientated; there is no quicker way to lose followers than to bombard them with sales pitch upon product offering that has no quality content about your mutual interests, or at least is interesting in itself! Also, a little generosity goes a long way in social networking sites. If you read a Tweet that you found helpful, or interesting, RETWEET it to your followers, including the name of the originator. By using the concept of positive affirmation you not only create goodwill towards yourself from the persons you have retweeted, but you also build your own image as someone who is more interested in providing your followers with quality information, irrespective of the source, than just punting your own products and viewpoints. Retweeting also goes a long way in adding to your follower numbers, as someone you have retweeted will be far more inclined to retweet something interesting you have to say to their followers, broadening your potential follower base.

Wishing you the best with your Tweeting campaigns, and may you dominate your niche one tweet at a time!

There are two major Barack Obama sites on Twitter. The most followed is Barack Obama with over one million followers. The other is Obama News with around 99,000 followers. Moreover, Oprah has really gotten involved with Twitter. There are two main Oprah sites on Twitter. Her main Twitter site were she tweets. She started tweeting on April 17th and has already obtained over 800,000 followers. Next in line is O Magazine with over 45,000 followers. The best unofficial site is witter.com/Oprah_Giveaways.

There are a couple of reasons I think that she does not follow Obama. First, Obama has not tweeted much since the campaign has been over. After the Inauguration there have only been 4 tweets. Obama’a tweets are very impersonal. They look like press releases. It would be nice if he actually tweeted on how he is doing. After all that’s the slogan of Twitter . There have been a lot of Tweets on Obama News. However, the tweets on Obama News are not put out by Obama himself.

One a side not I noticed that Oprah is not following O Magazine. Maybe she does not read the magazine either. Anyway, there have been other famous non followings. Palin who at first did not follow John McCain. However, not long after the “non following” was blogged about she was following McCain. I’m sure as soon as this gets out it will only take a few seconds before Oprah is following Obama. Or perhaps she has abandoned Obama for Shaq Diesel 2012.

There is a lot of good and worthwhile information flowing on Twitter every hour of every day. So much, in fact, it’s a bit difficult to keep up with. There is also a surprising number of celebrities (politicians, stars, athletes) using Twitter. You can follow them all and see what they are saying. Even Barack Obama is there, and I believe he is the most followed player.

You follow anyone you want, and people follow you. Of course the more people you follow, the more tweets you will be exposed to, and the harder it will be to develop relationships with your Twitter “friends.” You have the option to communicate privately with a friend (a follower that you are following) by using the Direct Message, or DM feature. All other postings are visible to everyone, but mostly to those following you.

Twitter is so new (started mid 2006) that appropriate Twitter etiquette and protocol is just developing. It is clear that many people have likes and dislikes about what others say and/or do. It seems that the majority of users dislike being contacted automatically with a DM. This is a fairly common practice when saying welcome to new followers, except they don’t like the automatic message because it’s not personal. This can get the relationship off to a bad start. In addition, many don’t like Twitter being used for commerce but I seriously doubt that will stop. Marketers will market where they can if it brings in business. The marketing I see personally does not bother me. Remember it’s limited to 140 characters and real easy to just skip the tweet.

So, should you get involved with Twitter? Why not? It’s going to be here for awhile and it’s growing. About one year ago there were 600,000 users and now the number is somewhere north of 6 million. Twitter subscriber numbers are doubling every month. I say you better jump on now while there is still room. I should warn you though, it can be addicting!

Happy Tweeting!

Wayne Weeks

http://waynestreasuretrove.blogspot.com

 

Brent is not alone; Barack Obama has been at it for ages…

Right now it is the place to be, it’s got the PR and the momentum but it does not have the revenue model at present and it’s purely venture capital funded.

To the uninitiated, messages are known as tweets and people who read your messages are called followers. Then there is the particular Twitter culture and mode of behaviour: sociability is enhanced by retweeting messages you find illuminating by rebroadcasting them to your followers. Among hardcore users, gratuitous self-promotion is frowned upon.

Twitter has stumbled upon a formula that a whole generation of internet start ups has been searching for: a way for people to connect with friends, express themselves and find information that stands a chance of one day becoming as popular as other mass online trends such as blogging and social networking.

Three years old, the Silicon Valley company only has 29 employees whilst the basic service will remain free, business users as on Linked In may be charged for extra functions. Meanwhile there is a viral network effect which is giving it great growth. The Twitter phenomenon has much to do with the fundamental simplicity of the idea. Operating at a juncture of blogging, texting and social networking, the service defies easy categorisation. “Because it is undergoing such rapid evolution, it’s hard to slap a label on it” says Peter Fenton a partner at Benchmark Capital, who has joined Twitter’s board.

Businesses have been keen to tap into a rapidly growing network like Twitter. The fact that users can choose which messages they want to receive could open the way to a new “opt-in” marketing says Bob Pearson of Dell. The computer maker for instance , issues a stream of tweets about new discounts on its products.

In summary Twitter’s six secrets of online success:

* Immediacy: Real-time flow of comments and adaptability to mobile handsets makes it more immediate than blogging.

* Brevity: Limiting messages to 140 characters makes it easier to produce and easier to digest.

* ‘Pull’ not ‘push’: The ability of users to choose whose tweets they follow makes it less random than email.

* Searchability: Messages can be searched, making the content more accessible than the comments on a social network.

* Mixing the public and the personal: A user’s personal contacts are on an equal footing with public figures.

* ‘Retweeting’: By copying and retransmitting messages, users can turn the network into a giant echo chamber.

* This past week Twitter has been in the news several times:

* Life or death – A snowboarder was found dead but Twitter had been used in the search and kept searchers up-to-date.

Twitter has been used very effectively to raise money for Comic Relief, after the Twestival and the current hitchhike of Twitchhiker, the TwitterTitters have compiled new book of comedy all this raising well deserved funds for Comic Relief.

On the commercial side-a US based IT company has developed a network of sensors that measure the amount of moisture in the soil and compares it to the optimum moisture level. This data is sent to a local network. The data is then turned into a text or Twitter message, to tell you when you need to water your plants. So how cool it is that your plants can now Twitter you to tell you they are thirsty!

Give it a go….

Find out which UK and US politicians use Twitter the most:

www.ft.com/twitteringclasses

and some well known Twitterers….

Will Carling

Russell Brand

Demi Moore

Chris Moyles

Britney Spears

Lance Armstrong

John Cleese

Snoop Dogg

Noel Edmonds

Bill Gates

Richard Branson

Jamie Oliver

Toby Young

Boris Johnson

Over to you, can interim management professionals afford not to join the Twittering classes?

Inspiration for this blog from the FT, The Observer, Computing and Metro, thank you.

To read the original post, go to Clive’s blog

1. Get the most up-to-date information- Ever heard of the phrase “what have you done for me lately? Remember when that plane landed in the Hudson River in New York? Twitterers’ were the first to report that with live pictures. One of the big advantages of twitter is that it operates in real-time, so you know what’s going on right now. When you first start using twitter you may not know what to expect. One thing you can count on is that the information on twitter is the most current you can possibly get. Twitter will always be doing things for you lately. Keep in mind some of the most influential people and brightest minds in the world are using twitter. Barack Obama, Al Gore and many other business owners, marketers, bloggers and celebrities are regular tweeters as well so you can get access to information that you probably would not have otherwise or might take much more time to research.

2. Viral Conversation- like anything it may take some time to get the hang of twitter and find all the people you would like to follow. But once this happens twitter can become a very valuable and enjoyable tool. As you join the conversation and people get to know you, they may be able to give you some valuable insight and perspective about your situation. Of course, you would have to take the initiative and ask people most of the time, but like the saying goes “Ask and you shall receive”.

For example, if you are undecided about a certain product to buy, you can simply ask your followers if they have had any experience with the products you are considering. Chances are somebody will be able to give you some feedback that will help you make a more informed buying decision. Or you can ask about something more casual like which movie to go see. If you have some movie-watching followers they may give you some good feedback about their thoughts on some movies.

3. Market your business or yourself- if you have a website or blog like I do, you can utilize twitter to gain more notoriety and drive more traffic. For example, if you make a new blog post you can simply make a tweet telling people that you have made a new post and many people will click on the link in your tweet to read it. If you are an affiliate marketer, you can make a tweet about a coupon or update from a merchant that might help monetize your website as well. Make sure that you are making other tweets in the interim, there is nothing more annoying than following somebody who only says “hey go check out my blog” or “hey go to my website”, but just know that you can use twitter to build your business.

For those that don’t have a website or blog, you can simply use twitter to market yourself or build your brandname. Many employers are checking facebook and myspace pages nowadays to make a more informed decision about the candidates they may potentially hire. If they find you on twitter, it may give you another opportunity to make a good impression and show them you are socially conscious, which is always a good thing. Also keep in mind that people are much more likely to buy things from people they know, so if you are selling anything or plan to sell anything in the future, twitter can definitely be beneficial to you in this way as well.

The bottomline is that twitter is more than just telling people about what you are doing. I would recommend starting off slowly to see what others are doing and how they utilize twitter. Then as you gradually get the hang of it, you can get more involved and it will become much easier. You should be advised that twitter can get very addicting though, and like everything I would also recommend using twitter in moderation.

As a general rule, the more people that you follow, the more people will follow you. So you might have to do some legwork in the beginning and do some searches to find people. Search for topics that you are interested in and you will find tons of interesting people to follow that will provide valuable information. Chances are that many of these people will follow you back. This will be well worth the time because the more people that you have to converse with, the more enjoyable twitter will be for you.

Keep in mind though that content is king in twitter, so don’t forgot to make good tweets and people will find you. You can also re-tweet other comments that you think people will be interested in, just make sure to keep their @name in the beginning of it so the person that made the original tweet will get credit for it.

Some will still prefer to socialize with only people that they know on FaceBook or MySpace, which I can understand. Many others will probably think they are too cool for twitter. I would argue that you can get to know people pretty well through socializing with them on the internet and that many people thought they were too cool for MySpace and Facebook when they first came out and now more than 30 million people have a FaceBook account. Whichever you prefer, it’s all about being social and having fun. Thanks for reading and hope to catch up with you soon!

The rest is here:
What Twitter Talked About Before the iPad: Haiti, Obama, Lady Gaga …

Originally posted here:
What Twitter Talked About Before the iPad: Haiti, Obama, Lady Gaga …

Twitter’s attracts all kinds. You’ll find famous actors as well as your average citizen in small town USA. There’s writers, designers, small business owners, big corporations , and even the leader of the free world had a team of Internet savvy supporters that used Twitter as part of the massive campaign that led him to win the 2008 election.  If Barack Obama encourages Twitter, then you might want to check it out.

So, What Makes twitter So Popular?

The funny thing about twitter is, at least at this point, it’s popularity is a huge part of what makes it popular!  When you have a social site with over 6 million users, including large TV networks, the President Of The United States (indirectly), you know it’s beywond “catching on”.

When something is this viral already and then gets major mainstream attention, then it becomes THE place to connect with people, and like it or not, that’s what it is fast becoming.

Before the current hype though, Twitter gained it’s initial popularity from solid features that were new, exciting, and worked well in today’s fast forward digital lifestyle.  Everything constantly needs to be faster and easier, and Twitter delivered that with micro-blogging.

Humans thrive on relationships and interaction with each other, and Twitter created the ability to do that in real time at an extremely fast pace. In addition to the speed, Twitter also makes it possible to make the connection with your friends and followers at any given time. It’s not just for marketing either. Let’s say you’re working late and you  have trouble with an application you are using. Jump on Twitter and post for help. Often, depending on your number of followers, you can have a solution to your problem from a friendly follower in a matter of minutes.

Twitter is also extremely addictive which adds to it’s popularity and viral movement. If everyone you know is “on Twitter” whenever you asked them what they’re doing, then you feel obligated to try it out. Just don’t let yourself get too addicted!