The Excellanz Blog

Do you Twitter?

For the past few months I’ve been observing and sometimes participating in various Social Networking sites in order to learn how they work, to see how these sites can potentially benefit business, and to build relationships. One of my favorite sites has been Twitter. It’s a rather informal micro-blogging platform - meaning you are limited to 140 characters in each post you create and publish. Other users can comment and reply to your posts, and you to theirs. There are hundreds of thousands of users, from every profession and walk of life, and you decide who you want to follow. When you follow someone, you see every post they publish, and can see their replies to other ‘Tweeters’ (in turn, learning who they follow). The ‘tweets’, or micro-blog posts, cover an incredibly diverse topic range, from weather, to what someone had for breakfast, to inquiries about the best restaurants, to a wide variety of business related items. The exchange happening back and forth between Twitter users builds relationships and trust over time.

One of the perks of Twitter, is that you can create/publish/read posts in a number of ways. You can use the web while logged in to the site itself, you can use any number of applications created for easier Twitter use, you can use GoogleTalk, (Google’s Instant Messenger program), or you can remotely use your telephone’s texting capabilities. Because of this, news travels at amazing speeds. When the earthquake in China hit, news of the details came thru Twitter much quicker than it did thru the local/national news. Links to photos, disaster relief efforts, and details of the damage showed up within minutes.  In another incident, there was a fire in Madison, WI in a fraternity house, that I knew about before my son did, who attends college there and only lives a few blocks from where the fire was.

For business exposure this site is incredible. The majority of users have their profiles set up with links to their/their companies website. Your followers will view your profile, and check out your website to learn about you and what you do. Every time you post a ‘Tweet’ announcing and linking to new content on your site or on your company blog, announce new projects you are working on/have completed, new clients you are welcoming, etc., your followers are very likely to view the content on your website.  I have given audience to sites and content that I would never have known existed out there, because I learned of it via someone I have followed on Twitter. I’ve also gotten calls about potential work from people who have viewed my site and are following me.