This month I have been horrible about blogging. Between client projects, trying to enjoy the summer, some time off and building the new DDM website blogging has not risen to the top of the list. This is not a good thing. Finding time to write even a short blog is important, because we can to keep readers coming back, Google coming back and just to be interesting.
One of the ways DDM will work to add more content is by bringing in posts from social networks. The new DDM blog will aggregate(collect) posts from Twitter and Delicious and possibly other networks as well.
Denver DataMan has lots of exciting things going on and we hope to share them with you soon, on the new DDM blog and website top be launched next week and some of our client projects. A very special thanks to Chris Reed for his efforts as the Denver DataMan, summer Intern (computer super hero in training) for working to migrate content from one site to another. None of this would happen without him!
Twitter is a micro-blogging tool designed to share short messages with people who follow another person. Users can share anything that they can say in 140 characters. Twitter can be an effective tool for sending out quick messages to clients, prospects, and friends. In this article I will look at some popular ways to use Twitter and show their value in business, I will also show some areas where Twitter does not work so well in a business environment.
Twitter is a wonderful tool for sending out updates about things that a business is doing or a new article that has been posted. Updates should be no more than a couple times per-day or these updates because overwhelming to many users. Personally I try to twitter no more than once per-day.
There are many users of Twitter that like to update with every new project they start, food they eat or place that they go. For some this is fun and may even work for some businesses to draw attention. I know personally I can’t follow that much information about anyone during my work day. If we are going to make the Internet a productivity gain we cannot be distracted by constant updates by other users. I like what a user named heathr said “Hoping twitter's 900% growth isn't just one really ADD social media marketing person.”
You can easily create a chain of tweets (messages on Twitter) by adding a # and then a unique code. For example if you will be at a conference and want to let people make live comments about the conference you could have #conference and then follow that. Some conference are even encouraging this and announcing the feed at the conference. These are called hash codes.
Internet radio host like Susan Kildahl use Twitter to communicate with people during their shows. Many news shows on TV are letting viewers use Twitter to communicate with anchors. You can use hash codes to communicate with others but also if you go to someone’s Twitter page you can reply to their post. For example if you reply to me it would say @denverdataan.
Part of trying to use new technologies like Twitter is taking risks. Denver DataMan had a Twitter Sale where I asked users to reply to my tweet to get a very special sale. This did not work too well but that does not mean it could not work well for others.
Twitter’s phenomenal growth gives business an opportunity to try and use Twitter to make the most of the Internet. Reply and share your success stories or challenges.
Twitter is a tool that lets you share sort blasts of information over the Internet. These short blasts are called tweets. Some say that Twitter is social networking, I like to think of it more as blogging, and micro-blogging at that. When someone posts on Twitter it’s called a tweet, tweets can be up 150 characters and are just short updates.
You can see the tweets I have made sharing about work. I have 18 people who follow me(meaning that they get updates when I write a tweet) and I am sure there are others who see my messages. This means that I am getting greater access to people who already have some interest in the things that I am doing providing me with another to remind and inspire my prospects, clients and partners about cool work that Denver DataMan does to help small businesses use technology more effectively.
With all content that I create I try to make sure there is great value in the content. The Internet has content everywhere and adding true value to it is what will make it read and matter in the long run. Twitter is an easy way to add nothing but clutter to the Internet but I am beginning to see that it could also be used to provide value added information.
Next month I will be having a tweet sale. At some point in the month of February, Denver DataMan will announce a sale to anyone who responds to m tweet within 5 hours. I don’t know anyone doing this yet so it will be interesting to see how it goes.
You can watch this video from the Common Craft Show on Twitter, this episode focuses on Twitter from a social approach but it is very good.
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