Account Creation
Talk about simplicity; Twitter’s three-step account-creation process couldn’t be easier:
1. Create a username and password.
2. Enter your email address to find contacts.
3. Start following people.
(You can even skip steps 2 and 3.)
Users are encouraged to share their real names, but doing so is not required.
Twitter user profiles can be completed and customized, but they do not have to be to
allow someone to use Twitter. Currently, there’s no user agreement to read and sign or
email confirmation link to click. (Although there is no user agreement, Twitter does
have Terms of Service, which you can find at http://twitter.com/tos.)
Just Start Typing
Once your account is created, you’re ready to start tweeting. You may simply
tweet your status, or you may create a welcome tweet introducing yourself to the
Twitterverse by telling a little about yourself and your reason(s) for joining Twitter.
This is good practice for the art of pithy writing! You can also hang back and lurk
a while. The term lurking has been around since the early days of the Internet, and
it merely means to hang back, become familiar with the process and culture of the
Internet channel you’re about to get involved with, and look a little before leaping. On
Twitter, lurking is reading other people’s tweets before venturing out to post your own.
The eager new user may seek the help of a willing friend who’s already on Twitter to
act as an accomplice, introducing you to their tweeps. Most Twitter users are warm
and welcoming of new users who acknowledge their “newbiness,” although these same
experienced users might be less tolerant of newcomers who don’t take time to learn
or who intentionally ignore better twetiquette, and some might even make a point of
calling the offender out. A very funny YouTube video showcases actor Kevin Spacey’s
appearance on the Late Show with David Letterman, in which he shows Dave how to
use Twitter: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Z1aZ7Gs46A.
Find Friends
Twitter has several tools to help you find friends and start building your Twitterverse.
We’ll cover this topic more in-depth later, “Week 1: Get on Twitter;” for now you
just need to know that Twitter’s friending functionality is both simple and without boundaries.
If you find someone you want to follow, you do not need to send this person an invitation
or even get their permission to start following them. Simply click the Follow button,
and you will officially befriend this person
When someone chooses to follow you on Twitter, Twitter sends you an email
notification with the new follower’s name, handle, and their followers/following/update
stats. This not only alerts you to the fact that you have a new follower, but you can
also click on the link in the email to view this new user’s Twitter page
Twitter alerts you by email when you have a new follower.
Unlike other social communities, however, friending on Twitter is not a two-way
arrangement. Following someone does not ensure that they are going to follow you, nor
should you expect them to do so. Because Twitter has basically no barriers to friending,
you will find yourself being followed by total strangers—and because you don’t know
these people, you may be reluctant to follow them. Some people have no problem with
follower reciprocity and they might even use automated software to instantaneously follow
you back; on the other hand, others are far more discriminatory about this practice.
These latter types of Twitter users will usually visit your Twitter profile page to learn
more about you and make their follow-back decision based on how follow-worthy they
feel you are. Regardless, following someone back is just as easy: all anyone has to do is
click the Follow button, and they’ll become a new follower.
Ease of Use
Twitter’s simplicity doesn’t stop once you’ve gotten started. Twitter’s clean interface
and easy-to-understand activities make it incredibly accessible to anyone. Because, in
theory, there are very few technical things you can do directly on Twitter, it has left
little room for functional error.
Straightforward Design
Twitter’s web interface is clean, attractive, and user-friendly, with little to detract from
its purpose. You can really do only a handful of things on Twitter.com,
and even listing them makes it all sound more complicated than it really is.
• Read tweets from your followers (your tweet stream).
• Mark a tweet as a Favorite.
• Send a message or reply to your followers.
• Read your direct messages.
• Send a direct message.
• View your followers.
• View who you’re following.
• View your tweets (you also have the option to delete your own tweets individually).
• View your favorites.
• Conduct a search (you can also save a search as an option).
• View your saved searches.
• View Trending Topics.
• Subscribe to your feed by RSS .
• Modify your profile.
• Change your settings.
• Find friends.
Saturday, June 4, 2011
Twitter Marketing Part 4
For a marketer, it’s just as important to understand the motivations behind why
people use Twitter as it is to understand how Twitter serves as a marketing tool. What
makes people want to follow and be followed? Why have so many people reluctantly
joined Twitter, only soon to become Twitter addicts (#twitteraddict)? In short, what
makes Twitter users tick? Let’s take a closer look at some of the reasons why Twitterers
use Twitter; understanding this will in turn help explain why Twitter continues to gain
such widespread popularity.
Keeping in Touch T witter is great for socializing. You can socialize with friends, clients,
customers, prospects, the media, and anyone else with whom you might regularly be in
touch. A single tweet is broadcast to all of your followers at once, making it easy to let
everyone know where you are and what you’re up to.
Making New Friends S ome people want to use Twitter strictly to find new friends and
contacts with whom to cyber-socialize. Twitter’s low barriers to connecting make this
especially easy.
Connecting with Like-Minded People T he majority of Twitter users are people looking to connect
with others who have similar interests and discuss the latest news and trends in
their circles. Enthusiasts of all types are connected through Twitter.
Example: There are tons of online gamers on Twitter who tweet about all things
video games, love to “talk smack,” and find new opponents.
Voyeurism T witter’s open system allows anyone—even non–Twitter users—to view
whatever you tweet. Someone might want to keep an eye on another tweep’s goings-on
without the other knowing it. Twitter makes this possible
.
Event Planning T witter can be an easy way to organize an offline gathering of likeminded
people. In fact, a TweetUp is Twitterese for “meet up” in which a group of
tweeps interested in meeting face-to-face plan to congregate at a determined time and
place, usually associated with an existing event or subject matter and usually in an
informal setting
.
Example: I initiated the idea of a TweetUp at the 2009 Search Engine Strategies
conference in New York and passed my idea on to the conference organizers,
who then suggested the time and place and tweeted about it to all their followers.
A healthy-sized group of people turned up and stayed several hours—networking,
talking about the conference, and “stimulating the economy” of a local
watering hole.
Activism On Twitter, it’s easy to find and/or recruit people willing to support or work
your cause, whether charitable, medical, environmental, or political.
Example: Barack Obama’s campaign managers used the @barackobama Twitter
account as an essential tool for finding and organizing support for their candidate.
They were obviously very successful. Twitter has also been used to help
severely ill people find donors or get medical assistance they might otherwise not
be able to afford.
Entertainment
T here’s no shortage of entertainment on Twitter, whether it’s celebrities
who tweet; bands updating their fans; comedians telling 140-character jokes; links to
YouTube videos; sports scores; or otherwise fun, funny, or interesting people and entities
using Twitter to amuse or be amused.
Example: Shaq O’Neal (@THE_REAL_SHAQ), Britney Spears (@britneyspears), and
Ellen DeGeneres (@TheEllenShow) all use Twitter to both inform and goose their
fans.
It is noteworthy that there are so many Twitter imposters posing as celebrities that
Twitter had to create a verified accounts system that consists of a seal on a user’s profile
page once Twitter confirms that the user is who he/she/it claims to be. Currently,
Twitter’s Verified Accounts are offered only to high-profile individuals likely to have
“impersonation problems or identity confusion,” and not businesses. The only information
Twitter currently offers about its verified accounts can be found here: http://
twitter.com/help/verified. Twitter has hinted at selling Verified Accounts to businesses
down the road, however, as a revenue stream.
Getting a Company’s Latest Tweets
Brands often use Twitter as a trumpet for news, developments,
and promotions—even before press releases or official blog posts. Many consumers
like to follow the companies that matter to them and connect with brands on a
more personal level.
Example: Tony Hsieh (@zappos), CEO of Zappos.com, one of the Web’s largest
footwear and accessories stores, tweets regularly about new products, company
news, and special promotions. He also shares tidbits from his exciting, alwayson-
the-go personal life.
Marketing and Business Development
T witter is an invaluable tool for businesses of all sizes.
In fact, Twitter’s level playing field gives small businesses and entrepreneurs an edge
they can’t necessarily get otherwise. Customers and prospects get to know the face
behind the company, which can be helpful in building a brand. Through Twitter, entrepreneurs
don’t have to spend thousands to launch a new product or service, promote a
marketing campaign, or drive traffic to their websites.
Example: @smbusinesses is a user who follows only small businesses on Twitter,
serving as a portal to connect and network with similar users.
Monitoring Brands and Reputations
Most tweeps aren’t shy about speaking their minds, especially
when it comes to things they like or dislike. Twitter makes it possible to monitor
and measure what they’re saying about you or your brand in real time.
Example: Comcast Cablevision, the company behind the Twitter handle
@ComcastCares, often responds promptly to tweets about service interruptions
and other complaints.
Keeping Up with the Latest News N ews breaks often on Twitter, especially tech-related news
originating from tweets by people within the industry. Some traditional media have
begun using Twitter as an additional broadcast medium.
Example: @CNNbrk is CNN ’s official Twitter account for breaking news. It continually
tweets the news network’s latest headlines to over 1.5 million followers.
Example: When a US Airways plane crash-landed in the Hudson River, the first
photo was submitted by a Twitter user who posted it to the Web (see http://
twitpic.com/135xa) and tweeted, “There’s a plane in the Hudson. I’m on the
ferry to pick up the people. Crazy.”
Simplicity
Twitter’s genesis sprung from the idea of serving as a status update tool, and at its
most basic level, that’s what it still is. Although its usage has evolved well
beyond the “What are you doing?” premise, Twitter’s simplicity makes answering the
status question a common first activity for newcomers.
Short and Sweet
Although Twitter limits messages to a meager 140 characters (Figure 1.10), many
would argue that this seemingly strict limitation is one of Twitter’s greatest strengths.
Limited length means that every word counts. In an Internet age of information overload,
most Twitter users relish in the brevity
Later in this blog, we’ll be going over the art of composing great tweets. Now,
for fun, let me share a term first introduced to me by a colleague (@dwplanit): twoosh,
which refers to a perfect and still sensible 140-character tweet. (It’s cheating if you
shorten or abbreviate words in your twoosh.) Intentionally trying to write a twoosh is
almost as challenging as writing haiku, although twooshes do frequently occur on their
own!
Low Barriers to Entry
Twitter makes it easy to join: It’s free! Using the web-based version of Twitter is still
100 percent free, although users accessing Twitter via mobile SMS might incur standard
text messaging rates and users who elect to use third-party Twitter management
solutions might also have to pay for those.
Twitter knows very few divides. Anyone of any nationality, race, or gender,
anywhere in the world, is welcome to create a Twitter account (or more than one)
For the low price of your name and a valid email address, admission to
the Twitterverse is granted. Email addresses are not validated, but using a false one
prevents the user from being notified by Twitter about things such as new followers or
direct messages.
See my part 5 to this series for more...
people use Twitter as it is to understand how Twitter serves as a marketing tool. What
makes people want to follow and be followed? Why have so many people reluctantly
joined Twitter, only soon to become Twitter addicts (#twitteraddict)? In short, what
makes Twitter users tick? Let’s take a closer look at some of the reasons why Twitterers
use Twitter; understanding this will in turn help explain why Twitter continues to gain
such widespread popularity.
Keeping in Touch T witter is great for socializing. You can socialize with friends, clients,
customers, prospects, the media, and anyone else with whom you might regularly be in
touch. A single tweet is broadcast to all of your followers at once, making it easy to let
everyone know where you are and what you’re up to.
Making New Friends S ome people want to use Twitter strictly to find new friends and
contacts with whom to cyber-socialize. Twitter’s low barriers to connecting make this
especially easy.
Connecting with Like-Minded People T he majority of Twitter users are people looking to connect
with others who have similar interests and discuss the latest news and trends in
their circles. Enthusiasts of all types are connected through Twitter.
Example: There are tons of online gamers on Twitter who tweet about all things
video games, love to “talk smack,” and find new opponents.
Voyeurism T witter’s open system allows anyone—even non–Twitter users—to view
whatever you tweet. Someone might want to keep an eye on another tweep’s goings-on
without the other knowing it. Twitter makes this possible
.
Event Planning T witter can be an easy way to organize an offline gathering of likeminded
people. In fact, a TweetUp is Twitterese for “meet up” in which a group of
tweeps interested in meeting face-to-face plan to congregate at a determined time and
place, usually associated with an existing event or subject matter and usually in an
informal setting
.
Example: I initiated the idea of a TweetUp at the 2009 Search Engine Strategies
conference in New York and passed my idea on to the conference organizers,
who then suggested the time and place and tweeted about it to all their followers.
A healthy-sized group of people turned up and stayed several hours—networking,
talking about the conference, and “stimulating the economy” of a local
watering hole.
Activism On Twitter, it’s easy to find and/or recruit people willing to support or work
your cause, whether charitable, medical, environmental, or political.
Example: Barack Obama’s campaign managers used the @barackobama Twitter
account as an essential tool for finding and organizing support for their candidate.
They were obviously very successful. Twitter has also been used to help
severely ill people find donors or get medical assistance they might otherwise not
be able to afford.
Entertainment
T here’s no shortage of entertainment on Twitter, whether it’s celebrities
who tweet; bands updating their fans; comedians telling 140-character jokes; links to
YouTube videos; sports scores; or otherwise fun, funny, or interesting people and entities
using Twitter to amuse or be amused.
Example: Shaq O’Neal (@THE_REAL_SHAQ), Britney Spears (@britneyspears), and
Ellen DeGeneres (@TheEllenShow) all use Twitter to both inform and goose their
fans.
It is noteworthy that there are so many Twitter imposters posing as celebrities that
Twitter had to create a verified accounts system that consists of a seal on a user’s profile
page once Twitter confirms that the user is who he/she/it claims to be. Currently,
Twitter’s Verified Accounts are offered only to high-profile individuals likely to have
“impersonation problems or identity confusion,” and not businesses. The only information
Twitter currently offers about its verified accounts can be found here: http://
twitter.com/help/verified. Twitter has hinted at selling Verified Accounts to businesses
down the road, however, as a revenue stream.
Getting a Company’s Latest Tweets
Brands often use Twitter as a trumpet for news, developments,
and promotions—even before press releases or official blog posts. Many consumers
like to follow the companies that matter to them and connect with brands on a
more personal level.
Example: Tony Hsieh (@zappos), CEO of Zappos.com, one of the Web’s largest
footwear and accessories stores, tweets regularly about new products, company
news, and special promotions. He also shares tidbits from his exciting, alwayson-
the-go personal life.
Marketing and Business Development
T witter is an invaluable tool for businesses of all sizes.
In fact, Twitter’s level playing field gives small businesses and entrepreneurs an edge
they can’t necessarily get otherwise. Customers and prospects get to know the face
behind the company, which can be helpful in building a brand. Through Twitter, entrepreneurs
don’t have to spend thousands to launch a new product or service, promote a
marketing campaign, or drive traffic to their websites.
Example: @smbusinesses is a user who follows only small businesses on Twitter,
serving as a portal to connect and network with similar users.
Monitoring Brands and Reputations
Most tweeps aren’t shy about speaking their minds, especially
when it comes to things they like or dislike. Twitter makes it possible to monitor
and measure what they’re saying about you or your brand in real time.
Example: Comcast Cablevision, the company behind the Twitter handle
@ComcastCares, often responds promptly to tweets about service interruptions
and other complaints.
Keeping Up with the Latest News N ews breaks often on Twitter, especially tech-related news
originating from tweets by people within the industry. Some traditional media have
begun using Twitter as an additional broadcast medium.
Example: @CNNbrk is CNN ’s official Twitter account for breaking news. It continually
tweets the news network’s latest headlines to over 1.5 million followers.
Example: When a US Airways plane crash-landed in the Hudson River, the first
photo was submitted by a Twitter user who posted it to the Web (see http://
twitpic.com/135xa) and tweeted, “There’s a plane in the Hudson. I’m on the
ferry to pick up the people. Crazy.”
Simplicity
Twitter’s genesis sprung from the idea of serving as a status update tool, and at its
most basic level, that’s what it still is. Although its usage has evolved well
beyond the “What are you doing?” premise, Twitter’s simplicity makes answering the
status question a common first activity for newcomers.
Short and Sweet
Although Twitter limits messages to a meager 140 characters (Figure 1.10), many
would argue that this seemingly strict limitation is one of Twitter’s greatest strengths.
Limited length means that every word counts. In an Internet age of information overload,
most Twitter users relish in the brevity
Later in this blog, we’ll be going over the art of composing great tweets. Now,
for fun, let me share a term first introduced to me by a colleague (@dwplanit): twoosh,
which refers to a perfect and still sensible 140-character tweet. (It’s cheating if you
shorten or abbreviate words in your twoosh.) Intentionally trying to write a twoosh is
almost as challenging as writing haiku, although twooshes do frequently occur on their
own!
Low Barriers to Entry
Twitter makes it easy to join: It’s free! Using the web-based version of Twitter is still
100 percent free, although users accessing Twitter via mobile SMS might incur standard
text messaging rates and users who elect to use third-party Twitter management
solutions might also have to pay for those.
Twitter knows very few divides. Anyone of any nationality, race, or gender,
anywhere in the world, is welcome to create a Twitter account (or more than one)
For the low price of your name and a valid email address, admission to
the Twitterverse is granted. Email addresses are not validated, but using a false one
prevents the user from being notified by Twitter about things such as new followers or
direct messages.
See my part 5 to this series for more...
Twitter Marketing Part 3
Twitter uses a proprietary message-routing system that processes text-based messages
from the Web, SMS, mobile Web, and instant messages. It also allows outside entities,
known collectively as third-party applications, to access its servers via its open-source
application program interface (API) to pass data (messages and user information) back
and forth. Twitter’s flexible, extensible platform has given it wide reach as developers
create new applications, tools, directories, functions, and the like. All of these Twitter
solutions attract attention, trial and use, and subsequent mention by the Twitter community
at large, which then helps to further broaden interest in Twitter. Many users
prefer such third-party apps as their primary means of using Twitter, which often
replaces entirely the need to go to the Twitter website.
On a simpler level, Twitter’s technology can be divided into two key components:
the Web and its mobile counterpart.
Twittering on the Web
The Twitter website itself is programmed using the Ruby on Rails web application framework,
which is popular with Twitter’s developers due to its facility for rapid development
and ease of maintenance. Twitter users who tweet from the Web at http://www.twitter.
com need only a basic web browser to use the service and access all of its features.
Twittering on the Go
Tweeting from a mobile phone while on the go is a slightly more complicated process.
Twitter provides a special web-based interface at http://m.Twitter.com. It is a pareddown,
faster-loading version of the original that works particularly well with browserenabled
mobile devices. If your device does not have a browser, mobile tweeting will
require learning a few special keypad commands. It’s important to note that using
Twitter while on the go is possible from any mobile device with SMS capability. Just
remember this: although using Twitter is free, text messaging (receiving and sending) is
not. If you plan to use Twitter via text messaging, you might want to monitor your cell
phone bills and upgrade to an unlimited text-messaging plan if your tweets really start
to add up.
Follow the Leader
Twitter’s unique subscription system allows you to follow (or unfollow) other users’
tweets, similar to subscribing to or unsubscribing from a blog or email list. Among
the statistics that Twitter displays prominently on every user’s profile page
are a followers count (the number of people following someone) as well as a following
count (the number of people someone follows).
Twitter’s very public statistics promote something of a popularity-contest atmosphere
within Twitter. People may pass instant judgments about the caliber of a user
based on their followers/following counts, and not necessarily on the quality of their
tweets. There are some who have gone so far as to propose that Twitter do away with
these followers/following statistics for this very reason.
The authentic side of the Twitterverse is an ecosystem that respects and rewards
quality over quantity—both with tweets and tweeps—and reduces the signal-to-noise
ratio when it comes to producing quality tweets. Most respectable tweeps frown on
spammers, annoying tweeps, those who tweet too much, and those who take “What
are you doing?” too literally. The objectives for brands utilizing Twitter should be the
same: produce great content, be engaged with your community, seek out those with
like-minded interests, and the followers will come. Ultimately, this kind of interactionattraction
will help support your brand.
Twitter’s Open Source API
From the start, Twitter facilitated its rise in popularity by opening itself up to integration
with other tools and applications built by web developers. Twitter’s open-source
API, the means by which these developers access Twitter’s server to pass information
back and forth, has led to the continuous development or upgrading of solutions that
improve how people use Twitter or extend its functionality. Many such applications are
simple. They are designed to do just one thing and do it well. It’s, therefore, typical of
tweeps to use a wide variety of specialized applications that suit their needs to improve
the overall Twitter experience.
There are hundreds of Twitter applications, and new ones are constantly being
developed. There are some common ones, however, that will be mentioned throughout
this book, so they’re worth listing here:
• TweetDeck is a popular downloadable desktop application with higher functionality
to receive, read, respond, manage, group, and search tweets.
• Twirl is another early front-runner in downloadable desktop applications
.
• Seesmic is a desktop application giving TweetDeck a run. It has now come out
with a web-based version of its app
• TwitterFox is a Firefox browser add-in application
.
• Tweetie is a popular iPhone Twitter application.
• Twitterfon is another popular iPhone Twitter client.
• Tweetlater is a web-based application that lets you schedule tweets for future
posting.
• Hootsuite is similar to Tweetlater. It combines with URL shortening and tracking
metrics.
• CoTweet is an application that manages multiple users responding to single or
multiple accounts with multiple users.
Obviously, there are many reasons why Twitter has grown so popular so quickly.
The industry now questions if it can sustain this growth and, if so, what Twitter plans
on doing to monetize it. In the meantime, we’ll focus this book on ways in which you
can monetize Twitter for business marketing gain.
Tweeting from a mobile phone while on the go is a slightly more complicated process.
Twitter provides a special Web-based interface at http://m.Twitter.com, a pared-down,
faster-loading version of the original that works particularly well with browser-enabled
mobile devices. If your device does not have a browser, mobile tweeting requires a few
special keypad commands due to the lack of a Web-based interface. It’s
important to note that using Twitter while on the go is possible from any mobile device
with SMS capability.
Twitter’s Rapid Ascent
Despite the enthusiasm among early adopters when Twitter was first launched, most
of the public struggled to understand Twitter’s appeal. At first, many users wondered,
“Do people really want to know every little thing I do?”
Part of the initial hurdle in attracting users to Twitter was that people were just
tweeting about the mundane. In its first few months before today’s tools, applications,
and enhancements arrived, it was hard to recognize Twitter’s real value. As Twitter
began to catch on, however, clever users started to use Twitter to share links and news
and to integrate Twitter feeds into their blogs via RSS . Twitter’s technology allowed
developers to access its servers, and then they released new tools that made Twitter
more manageable and interesting to more people.
As is common with unanticipated growth spurts in web technology, Twitter’s
increased use led to problems. By midyear 2007, Twitter began experiencing server capacity
problems related to its growing number of users, prompting the creation of the
now infamous Fail Whale, which was both a humorous graphic and quick-to-catch-on
description of the recurring circumstance
Despite its technical problems, Twitter cultivated a bold and fiercely loyal user
base, while developing its own sense of culture, etiquette, and even vocabulary. Twitter
is one of the most unique social networks in this respect, as many of its social mores
developed out of its requirement for brevity. Twitter users tend to be very matter-offact
when it comes to tweeting, and very vocal about other users’ faux pas. Because of
this, new users, particularly big brands who by their very nature are targets and tend
to be called out faster by the Twitter community, should be well aware and respectful
of Twitter’s unique culture so as to avoid engaging recklessly. That said, Twitter is also
known to be one of the most honest, helpful, and welcoming online communities, and
its reputation is perhaps one of the main reasons behind its surge in popularity over the
course of 2007.
In 2008, Twitter attracted the media’s attention when some American presidential
candidates began using it on the campaign trail, most notably Barack Obama.
According to Hitwise, on election day 2008, traffic on Twitter.com alone rose 43 percent.
Later that year, Twitter users in India live-tweeted the horrific events of the 2008
Mumbai attacks as the tragedy unfolded. It was a significant turning point in Twitter’s
history, as people began to rely on this simple but effective service as a source for
breaking news. In the summer 2009, Twitter again influenced history during the aftermath
of the Iranian elections, which resulted in national tumult, culminating with the
Iranian government’s ousting of the traditional news media. During that time, the only
breaking news came from tweets from the Iranian opposition.
Because Twitter is mobile, tweeps who are first on the scene of breaking news
are able to get the word out quickly and efficiently. Smart phones not only let people
tweet; they can also take and upload photos, enriching the value of a tweet. These
days, news often breaks first on Twitter, and the media follows suit. Not to be usurped,
many media outlets now deliver their news feeds via Twitter, as well as directly engaging
with readers.
By the start of 2009, Twitter’s popularity reached critical mass. Once thought of
as a trivial fad, Twitter was now making headlines and becoming a household word.
More brands began integrating Twitter into their social media strategies. Realizing its
importance, entities from large corporations to small businesses were also racing to
claim their Twitter handles, hoping to avoid the domain-squatting issues of the late
1990s.
Twitter has also become wildly popular in the mainstream media as more celebrities
have joined the fray, reaching a pinnacle in April 2009 when Oprah (@oprah)
signed up for Twitter live on her show with the already popular actor and producer
Ashton Kutcher (@aplusk) in the role of guide, and drawing 76,000 followers to her
account within less than 15 minutes of her first tweet! Popular tech blog TechCrunch
estimated that Oprah’s show alone may have brought more than one million new users
to Twitter. Not long after, Kutcher laid down a challenge to acquire more than one million
users before CNN ’s Breaking News (@cnnbrk). Since then, Kutcher
has completely surpassed Breaking News and is currently the Number One “most
popular” Twitterer, as measured by the number of followers.
Twitter’s Financial Future
Twitter’s popularity has also attracted potential mega-buyers. In November 2008,
there were multiple unconfirmed reports that Facebook offered to acquire Twitter for
$500 million of its stock, which included a cash component. The offer was roundly
rejected. In April 2009, rumors furiously swirled that Google was also going to make
an offer to acquire Twitter. Google squarely denied the rumor. In May 2009, Apple
too, it was rumored, was interested in acquiring Twitter. To date, Twitter has rejected
all offers to be acquired, stating on its blog that it intends to go it on its own:
http://blog.twitter.com/2009/04/sometimes-we-talk.html
All of these rumors have many of us wondering, “What is the future of
Twitter?” Twitter seems to be investing in its future by courting investors, hiring experienced
players, and keeping the media grasping at every publicly announced nuance
or teased piece of information. For example, in March 2008 the Wall Street Journal
reported that Twitter cofounder Biz Stone alluded to companies paying for more
features in the future because Twitter had hired a product manager to develop these
yet-to-be-defined features. In June 2009, a general partner of a firm that invested in
Twitter hinted to The New York Times that Twitter’s monetization lay in ecommerce,
namely “links to products and turnkey payment mechanisms” and “filters and feeds
to sort tweets by whom they are from and what they are about.” That same month,
Bloomberg.com reported that Biz Stone said that Twitter could make money by verifying
corporate accounts. In August 2009, Biz Stone taped a television interview on the
PBS show Tavis Smiley and alluded to the company’s plans to monetize itself by selling
more robust data-analysis features to brand companies. In September 2009, The Wall
Street Journal reported that Twitter was close to raising as much as $100 million from
multiple investors who valuated Twitter at $1 billion!
However Twitter plans to make money in the long run, one thing’s for certain:
plenty of people in Twitterdom will have an opinion about their decision.
What Makes Tweeps Tick?
Twitter creates value because it can be used in many clever and innovative ways to
serve many different purposes
(please view part 4)
from the Web, SMS, mobile Web, and instant messages. It also allows outside entities,
known collectively as third-party applications, to access its servers via its open-source
application program interface (API) to pass data (messages and user information) back
and forth. Twitter’s flexible, extensible platform has given it wide reach as developers
create new applications, tools, directories, functions, and the like. All of these Twitter
solutions attract attention, trial and use, and subsequent mention by the Twitter community
at large, which then helps to further broaden interest in Twitter. Many users
prefer such third-party apps as their primary means of using Twitter, which often
replaces entirely the need to go to the Twitter website.
On a simpler level, Twitter’s technology can be divided into two key components:
the Web and its mobile counterpart.
Twittering on the Web
The Twitter website itself is programmed using the Ruby on Rails web application framework,
which is popular with Twitter’s developers due to its facility for rapid development
and ease of maintenance. Twitter users who tweet from the Web at http://www.twitter.
com need only a basic web browser to use the service and access all of its features.
Twittering on the Go
Tweeting from a mobile phone while on the go is a slightly more complicated process.
Twitter provides a special web-based interface at http://m.Twitter.com. It is a pareddown,
faster-loading version of the original that works particularly well with browserenabled
mobile devices. If your device does not have a browser, mobile tweeting will
require learning a few special keypad commands. It’s important to note that using
Twitter while on the go is possible from any mobile device with SMS capability. Just
remember this: although using Twitter is free, text messaging (receiving and sending) is
not. If you plan to use Twitter via text messaging, you might want to monitor your cell
phone bills and upgrade to an unlimited text-messaging plan if your tweets really start
to add up.
Follow the Leader
Twitter’s unique subscription system allows you to follow (or unfollow) other users’
tweets, similar to subscribing to or unsubscribing from a blog or email list. Among
the statistics that Twitter displays prominently on every user’s profile page
are a followers count (the number of people following someone) as well as a following
count (the number of people someone follows).
Twitter’s very public statistics promote something of a popularity-contest atmosphere
within Twitter. People may pass instant judgments about the caliber of a user
based on their followers/following counts, and not necessarily on the quality of their
tweets. There are some who have gone so far as to propose that Twitter do away with
these followers/following statistics for this very reason.
The authentic side of the Twitterverse is an ecosystem that respects and rewards
quality over quantity—both with tweets and tweeps—and reduces the signal-to-noise
ratio when it comes to producing quality tweets. Most respectable tweeps frown on
spammers, annoying tweeps, those who tweet too much, and those who take “What
are you doing?” too literally. The objectives for brands utilizing Twitter should be the
same: produce great content, be engaged with your community, seek out those with
like-minded interests, and the followers will come. Ultimately, this kind of interactionattraction
will help support your brand.
Twitter’s Open Source API
From the start, Twitter facilitated its rise in popularity by opening itself up to integration
with other tools and applications built by web developers. Twitter’s open-source
API, the means by which these developers access Twitter’s server to pass information
back and forth, has led to the continuous development or upgrading of solutions that
improve how people use Twitter or extend its functionality. Many such applications are
simple. They are designed to do just one thing and do it well. It’s, therefore, typical of
tweeps to use a wide variety of specialized applications that suit their needs to improve
the overall Twitter experience.
There are hundreds of Twitter applications, and new ones are constantly being
developed. There are some common ones, however, that will be mentioned throughout
this book, so they’re worth listing here:
• TweetDeck is a popular downloadable desktop application with higher functionality
to receive, read, respond, manage, group, and search tweets.
• Twirl is another early front-runner in downloadable desktop applications
.
• Seesmic is a desktop application giving TweetDeck a run. It has now come out
with a web-based version of its app
• TwitterFox is a Firefox browser add-in application
.
• Tweetie is a popular iPhone Twitter application.
• Twitterfon is another popular iPhone Twitter client.
• Tweetlater is a web-based application that lets you schedule tweets for future
posting.
• Hootsuite is similar to Tweetlater. It combines with URL shortening and tracking
metrics.
• CoTweet is an application that manages multiple users responding to single or
multiple accounts with multiple users.
Obviously, there are many reasons why Twitter has grown so popular so quickly.
The industry now questions if it can sustain this growth and, if so, what Twitter plans
on doing to monetize it. In the meantime, we’ll focus this book on ways in which you
can monetize Twitter for business marketing gain.
Tweeting from a mobile phone while on the go is a slightly more complicated process.
Twitter provides a special Web-based interface at http://m.Twitter.com, a pared-down,
faster-loading version of the original that works particularly well with browser-enabled
mobile devices. If your device does not have a browser, mobile tweeting requires a few
special keypad commands due to the lack of a Web-based interface. It’s
important to note that using Twitter while on the go is possible from any mobile device
with SMS capability.
Twitter’s Rapid Ascent
Despite the enthusiasm among early adopters when Twitter was first launched, most
of the public struggled to understand Twitter’s appeal. At first, many users wondered,
“Do people really want to know every little thing I do?”
Part of the initial hurdle in attracting users to Twitter was that people were just
tweeting about the mundane. In its first few months before today’s tools, applications,
and enhancements arrived, it was hard to recognize Twitter’s real value. As Twitter
began to catch on, however, clever users started to use Twitter to share links and news
and to integrate Twitter feeds into their blogs via RSS . Twitter’s technology allowed
developers to access its servers, and then they released new tools that made Twitter
more manageable and interesting to more people.
As is common with unanticipated growth spurts in web technology, Twitter’s
increased use led to problems. By midyear 2007, Twitter began experiencing server capacity
problems related to its growing number of users, prompting the creation of the
now infamous Fail Whale, which was both a humorous graphic and quick-to-catch-on
description of the recurring circumstance
Despite its technical problems, Twitter cultivated a bold and fiercely loyal user
base, while developing its own sense of culture, etiquette, and even vocabulary. Twitter
is one of the most unique social networks in this respect, as many of its social mores
developed out of its requirement for brevity. Twitter users tend to be very matter-offact
when it comes to tweeting, and very vocal about other users’ faux pas. Because of
this, new users, particularly big brands who by their very nature are targets and tend
to be called out faster by the Twitter community, should be well aware and respectful
of Twitter’s unique culture so as to avoid engaging recklessly. That said, Twitter is also
known to be one of the most honest, helpful, and welcoming online communities, and
its reputation is perhaps one of the main reasons behind its surge in popularity over the
course of 2007.
In 2008, Twitter attracted the media’s attention when some American presidential
candidates began using it on the campaign trail, most notably Barack Obama.
According to Hitwise, on election day 2008, traffic on Twitter.com alone rose 43 percent.
Later that year, Twitter users in India live-tweeted the horrific events of the 2008
Mumbai attacks as the tragedy unfolded. It was a significant turning point in Twitter’s
history, as people began to rely on this simple but effective service as a source for
breaking news. In the summer 2009, Twitter again influenced history during the aftermath
of the Iranian elections, which resulted in national tumult, culminating with the
Iranian government’s ousting of the traditional news media. During that time, the only
breaking news came from tweets from the Iranian opposition.
Because Twitter is mobile, tweeps who are first on the scene of breaking news
are able to get the word out quickly and efficiently. Smart phones not only let people
tweet; they can also take and upload photos, enriching the value of a tweet. These
days, news often breaks first on Twitter, and the media follows suit. Not to be usurped,
many media outlets now deliver their news feeds via Twitter, as well as directly engaging
with readers.
By the start of 2009, Twitter’s popularity reached critical mass. Once thought of
as a trivial fad, Twitter was now making headlines and becoming a household word.
More brands began integrating Twitter into their social media strategies. Realizing its
importance, entities from large corporations to small businesses were also racing to
claim their Twitter handles, hoping to avoid the domain-squatting issues of the late
1990s.
Twitter has also become wildly popular in the mainstream media as more celebrities
have joined the fray, reaching a pinnacle in April 2009 when Oprah (@oprah)
signed up for Twitter live on her show with the already popular actor and producer
Ashton Kutcher (@aplusk) in the role of guide, and drawing 76,000 followers to her
account within less than 15 minutes of her first tweet! Popular tech blog TechCrunch
estimated that Oprah’s show alone may have brought more than one million new users
to Twitter. Not long after, Kutcher laid down a challenge to acquire more than one million
users before CNN ’s Breaking News (@cnnbrk). Since then, Kutcher
has completely surpassed Breaking News and is currently the Number One “most
popular” Twitterer, as measured by the number of followers.
Twitter’s Financial Future
Twitter’s popularity has also attracted potential mega-buyers. In November 2008,
there were multiple unconfirmed reports that Facebook offered to acquire Twitter for
$500 million of its stock, which included a cash component. The offer was roundly
rejected. In April 2009, rumors furiously swirled that Google was also going to make
an offer to acquire Twitter. Google squarely denied the rumor. In May 2009, Apple
too, it was rumored, was interested in acquiring Twitter. To date, Twitter has rejected
all offers to be acquired, stating on its blog that it intends to go it on its own:
http://blog.twitter.com/2009/04/sometimes-we-talk.html
All of these rumors have many of us wondering, “What is the future of
Twitter?” Twitter seems to be investing in its future by courting investors, hiring experienced
players, and keeping the media grasping at every publicly announced nuance
or teased piece of information. For example, in March 2008 the Wall Street Journal
reported that Twitter cofounder Biz Stone alluded to companies paying for more
features in the future because Twitter had hired a product manager to develop these
yet-to-be-defined features. In June 2009, a general partner of a firm that invested in
Twitter hinted to The New York Times that Twitter’s monetization lay in ecommerce,
namely “links to products and turnkey payment mechanisms” and “filters and feeds
to sort tweets by whom they are from and what they are about.” That same month,
Bloomberg.com reported that Biz Stone said that Twitter could make money by verifying
corporate accounts. In August 2009, Biz Stone taped a television interview on the
PBS show Tavis Smiley and alluded to the company’s plans to monetize itself by selling
more robust data-analysis features to brand companies. In September 2009, The Wall
Street Journal reported that Twitter was close to raising as much as $100 million from
multiple investors who valuated Twitter at $1 billion!
However Twitter plans to make money in the long run, one thing’s for certain:
plenty of people in Twitterdom will have an opinion about their decision.
What Makes Tweeps Tick?
Twitter creates value because it can be used in many clever and innovative ways to
serve many different purposes
(please view part 4)
Twitter Marketing Terminology cont.
Tweep. A nickname used to describe a Twitter user. (Tweep is shorter name than Twitterer
and originates from the terms “Twitter” and “people,” or “peeps.”) Tweeps describes more
than one tweep.
Follower. Someone who has opted in to receive your tweets in their Twitter Steam.
Following. Those who you have opted in to receive tweets from.
Friend. When a mutual Follower/Following relationship exists between two users.
Twitterverse. Describes the Twitter community at large—i.e., the Twitter universe.
Hashtag. The hashtag is a way of identifying a tweet related to a particular subject. The
hashtag protocol is the hash or pound sign (#) directly followed by the word, words, or
characters someone has assigned to that subject—the fewer characters, the better. For
example, the hashtag for this blog will be #TMHAD, an abbreviation for “Twitter Marketing:
An Hour a DayTwitter does not currently release the number of active accounts using the service.
Independent market research companies, however, continually analyze Twitter’s traffic
and growth, which has been substantial. If understanding the definition of Twitter is
any indication, Twitter most certainly has a lot of people’s attention. Sites that monitor
Wikipedia traffic show that the Twitter definition page, or article, jumped from being
the 70th most accessed page in February 2009 to being in the Top 25 of all accessed
pages on Wikipedia for March and April 2009, the latest statistics available at the
time of this writing. Another source estimates that over a million people viewed the
Wikipedia article for Twitter in May 2009. This is substantial when you consider that
there are over three million articles on Wikipedia. The Twitter article on Wikipedia
was created March 11, 2007 and has been repeatedly edited—2,183 times as of this
writing. Nielsen statistics indicate that Twitter experienced an unprecedented 1,382
percent growth rate between February 2008 and February 2009, leaping from 475,000
to 7 million unique monthly visitors in the span of one year. This makes Twitter the
fastest-growing social network for that time period. As of May 2009,
Compete.com estimated Twitter to have 19.7 million unique monthly visitors, which
ranks Twitter as the third-largest social network, behind Facebook and MySpace.
Demographically, Twitter is split closely between male and female audiences.
As of May 2009, Quantcast reported that 55 percent of Twitter users were female. In June 2009, Sysomos, a social media analytics company, measured the
gender breakdown of Twitter at 53 percent female and 47 percent male. For that same time period, Hitwise, a service that tracks data passing through Internet Service
Providers (IS Ps) and measures Twitter.com traffic, came up with similar numbers, citing
the gender breakdown of Twitter as 51.5 percent female and 48.5 percent male.
But a Harvard Business School study released around this same time argued that
Twitter is very “male-centric,” despite the larger number of female users. The study
found that both sexes are more likely to follow more men than they are to follow
women on Twitter, and that men are almost twice as likely to follow other men than
women. Men have 15 percent more followers than women, and men are more likely
to have reciprocal Twitter relationships (Male A follows Male B, who in turn follows
back Male A). Study authors find these results so atypical that they describe them as
“stunning … on a typical online social network, most of the activity is focused around
women—men follow content produced by women they do and do not know, and
women follow content produced by women they know.”Personally, I question whether the Harvard findings will stand up over time, and
I would also like to see a study that analyzes gender and “tweep affinity.” Men may
have more followers, but I think that’s because they view these relationships in either a
casual or business way, whereas women take their Twitter relationships more seriously,
and more loyally and frequently tweet among themselves. There’s a whole community
of interconnected moms on Twitter. I believe the strength of these tweep affinities is
going to matter more over time than sheer numbers indicate.
When it comes to age, there’s some disparity in the statistics. Some say that
Twitter, like other social networks, is rooted firmly in the 18-to-34 demographic,
claiming this bracket accounts for approximately 47 percent of all its users. Other
sources say that Twitter users predominantly fall into the 35- to 49-year-old age
bracket, which accounts for 35 percent. In the meantime, a surprisingly large number
of seniors tweet, accounting for 21 percent of the Twitter population. Almost all
researchers agree, however, that Twitter is not for the youth set, with only 1 percent
of Twitter users falling under the age of 17.
What Twitter Is Not
Sometimes explaining Twitter in the context of what it’s not helps to clarify things.
Twitter isn’t accessible only on the Web. T witter users can communicate via cell phone, mobile
devices, or desktop applications.
Twitter isn’t the “new” email or cell phone. T witter’s 140-character limitation is just that—
limiting. For rapid-fire, short communications, Twitter is useful. However, email and
telephones can still do a lot more than Twitter can. Twitter is just another tool in the
digital communicator’s toolkit.
Twitter isn’t a form of instant messenger. A lthough it’s true that Twitter shares many of the
same characteristics as instant messaging or chat applications, the two operate using
different technology, offer different functionality, and serve different purposes.
Twitter isn’t a micro version of your blog. A lthough many users exploit Twitter to tease and
link to every new blog post, using Twitter only in this manner is considered poor practice.
Your tweets should be varied, with original content. Otherwise, why would anyone
else want to read them?
Twitter isn’t private by any means. Unless you lock them down, be prepared for your tweets
to be read, responded to, and possibly forwarded (retweeted) by perfect strangers. It’s
almost pointless to be on Twitter and lock down your tweets unless you never want to
be engaged by the greater community—the Twitterverse. This piece of advice, however,
does not apply to direct messages, which are private.
Twitter isn’t a replacement for Facebook, MySpace, or other social networks. R ather, Twitter can be a
complement to social networks, as well as a different, albeit powerful, standalone tool.
and originates from the terms “Twitter” and “people,” or “peeps.”) Tweeps describes more
than one tweep.
Follower. Someone who has opted in to receive your tweets in their Twitter Steam.
Following. Those who you have opted in to receive tweets from.
Friend. When a mutual Follower/Following relationship exists between two users.
Twitterverse. Describes the Twitter community at large—i.e., the Twitter universe.
Hashtag. The hashtag is a way of identifying a tweet related to a particular subject. The
hashtag protocol is the hash or pound sign (#) directly followed by the word, words, or
characters someone has assigned to that subject—the fewer characters, the better. For
example, the hashtag for this blog will be #TMHAD, an abbreviation for “Twitter Marketing:
An Hour a DayTwitter does not currently release the number of active accounts using the service.
Independent market research companies, however, continually analyze Twitter’s traffic
and growth, which has been substantial. If understanding the definition of Twitter is
any indication, Twitter most certainly has a lot of people’s attention. Sites that monitor
Wikipedia traffic show that the Twitter definition page, or article, jumped from being
the 70th most accessed page in February 2009 to being in the Top 25 of all accessed
pages on Wikipedia for March and April 2009, the latest statistics available at the
time of this writing. Another source estimates that over a million people viewed the
Wikipedia article for Twitter in May 2009. This is substantial when you consider that
there are over three million articles on Wikipedia. The Twitter article on Wikipedia
was created March 11, 2007 and has been repeatedly edited—2,183 times as of this
writing. Nielsen statistics indicate that Twitter experienced an unprecedented 1,382
percent growth rate between February 2008 and February 2009, leaping from 475,000
to 7 million unique monthly visitors in the span of one year. This makes Twitter the
fastest-growing social network for that time period. As of May 2009,
Compete.com estimated Twitter to have 19.7 million unique monthly visitors, which
ranks Twitter as the third-largest social network, behind Facebook and MySpace.
Demographically, Twitter is split closely between male and female audiences.
As of May 2009, Quantcast reported that 55 percent of Twitter users were female. In June 2009, Sysomos, a social media analytics company, measured the
gender breakdown of Twitter at 53 percent female and 47 percent male. For that same time period, Hitwise, a service that tracks data passing through Internet Service
Providers (IS Ps) and measures Twitter.com traffic, came up with similar numbers, citing
the gender breakdown of Twitter as 51.5 percent female and 48.5 percent male.
But a Harvard Business School study released around this same time argued that
Twitter is very “male-centric,” despite the larger number of female users. The study
found that both sexes are more likely to follow more men than they are to follow
women on Twitter, and that men are almost twice as likely to follow other men than
women. Men have 15 percent more followers than women, and men are more likely
to have reciprocal Twitter relationships (Male A follows Male B, who in turn follows
back Male A). Study authors find these results so atypical that they describe them as
“stunning … on a typical online social network, most of the activity is focused around
women—men follow content produced by women they do and do not know, and
women follow content produced by women they know.”Personally, I question whether the Harvard findings will stand up over time, and
I would also like to see a study that analyzes gender and “tweep affinity.” Men may
have more followers, but I think that’s because they view these relationships in either a
casual or business way, whereas women take their Twitter relationships more seriously,
and more loyally and frequently tweet among themselves. There’s a whole community
of interconnected moms on Twitter. I believe the strength of these tweep affinities is
going to matter more over time than sheer numbers indicate.
When it comes to age, there’s some disparity in the statistics. Some say that
Twitter, like other social networks, is rooted firmly in the 18-to-34 demographic,
claiming this bracket accounts for approximately 47 percent of all its users. Other
sources say that Twitter users predominantly fall into the 35- to 49-year-old age
bracket, which accounts for 35 percent. In the meantime, a surprisingly large number
of seniors tweet, accounting for 21 percent of the Twitter population. Almost all
researchers agree, however, that Twitter is not for the youth set, with only 1 percent
of Twitter users falling under the age of 17.
What Twitter Is Not
Sometimes explaining Twitter in the context of what it’s not helps to clarify things.
Twitter isn’t accessible only on the Web. T witter users can communicate via cell phone, mobile
devices, or desktop applications.
Twitter isn’t the “new” email or cell phone. T witter’s 140-character limitation is just that—
limiting. For rapid-fire, short communications, Twitter is useful. However, email and
telephones can still do a lot more than Twitter can. Twitter is just another tool in the
digital communicator’s toolkit.
Twitter isn’t a form of instant messenger. A lthough it’s true that Twitter shares many of the
same characteristics as instant messaging or chat applications, the two operate using
different technology, offer different functionality, and serve different purposes.
Twitter isn’t a micro version of your blog. A lthough many users exploit Twitter to tease and
link to every new blog post, using Twitter only in this manner is considered poor practice.
Your tweets should be varied, with original content. Otherwise, why would anyone
else want to read them?
Twitter isn’t private by any means. Unless you lock them down, be prepared for your tweets
to be read, responded to, and possibly forwarded (retweeted) by perfect strangers. It’s
almost pointless to be on Twitter and lock down your tweets unless you never want to
be engaged by the greater community—the Twitterverse. This piece of advice, however,
does not apply to direct messages, which are private.
Twitter isn’t a replacement for Facebook, MySpace, or other social networks. R ather, Twitter can be a
complement to social networks, as well as a different, albeit powerful, standalone tool.
Friday, June 3, 2011
Twitter Marketing
Twitter TerminologyToday we are going to learn the art of a successful Twitter marketing campaign that takes an hour a day to accomplish. In the end, your brand will be across every major website, social media site, and social bookmarking site you can think of.
In 2006, a software engineer by the name of Jack Dorsey went to a syndication company named Odeo with the idea of using an easy method to utilize the concept of what everyone was (and still is) doing- posting their status to all their friends to let them know what they are doing at any given moment. Dorsey was interested in creat- ing a status communication platform which would be in real-time, with the whole social media feel to it. The founder of Odeo, Biz Stone, marveled at this thought. They together decided to make this into a short messaging service, better known as SMS, (the same SMS used on a cell phone's text messaging) would be the perfect fit for this idea. Together, they agreed upon a maximum message size of 140 characters, differ-
entiating themselves from the traditinal SMS maximum used on a cell phone of 160characters. The extra
space leaves the room necessary for a user name and a colon. Hence the origin of what we commonly know as Twitter.
In only two weeks’ time, the first prototype of what would become Twitter wasborn. The service quickly grew popular with Odeo employees and other insiders, and attracted the attention of ex-Googler Evan Williams, who initially funded the project. Twitter was launched to the public in August 2006, and by May 2007, Dorsey, Stone and Williams officially cofounded Twitter, Inc. Twitter Defined So what the heck is Twitter, anyway? The common definitions of Twitter are mired in industry jargon such as “social networking” and “micro-blogging,” so if you don’t understand those terms, we need to take a step back for a minute. I find myself explaining Twitter to newbies as something akin to instant messaging or chat—that is, Twitter is a platform that allows you to share, in real time, thoughts, information, links, and so forth with the Web at-large
and to be able to communicate directly, privately or publicly, with other Twitter users. The main difference, however, is that each Twitter communication cannot exceed 140 total characters. I am also frequently asked questions about who can see these messages and if someone has to join Twitter to communicate. I stress that most Twitter posts, known as tweets, can theoretically be viewed by anyone with an Internet connection at any time. No one needs to have a Twitter account to view someone else’s tweets. The public
accessibility of Twitter makes it somewhat unique among social networking websites, where normally you can’t see people’s information without them first accepting your invitation. If you do want to communicate privately with other individuals on Twitter, though, you will need to join and create an account. (I’ll tell you more about how you can send private messages through Twitter a little later.) Twitter is based on the simple question “What are you doing?” and encourages users to answer exactly that. But if you use Twitter only to broadcast your commonplace activities, you’re missing out on its real potential. After all, if all you ever write
is “Going to the grocery store now,” or “Just fixed the office copier,” you’re not really opening up the door for much conversation, are you? Conversations of many kinds and the ease with which Twitter facilitates
them compose the hidden power of Twitter, particularly as a branding and business marketing tool. Twitter has given the public unprecedented direct access to companies, celebrities, and power figures in a way that hasn’t previously been seen. Conversely, Twitter enables unfettered and immediate direct access to the masses. For a brand, Twitter can rapidly reduce the timeline and costs of research, product launches, pilot tests, incentives, and promotions; plus Twitter offers a number of other possibilities that we will explore in depth later in this blog.
Twitter humbly asks, “What are you doing?” Perhaps the more appropriate question for Twitter to ask would be, “What interests you?” Try thinking in this context as you begin marketing yourself or your business through Twitter. Remember that tweeting is like having a conversation. Imagine yourself at a conference or a business-networking event. If a perfect stranger came up to you and blurted out, “I’m eating the empanada hors d’oeuvres right now,” you would probably look oddly at this person, give them an awkward smile, and move swiftly on your way. On the other hand, if a different person came up and said, “I found the information provided by the last speaker very valuable for my business. How about you?” you’d probably be more interested in what this person had to say, and more inclined to respond yes or no. That’s how you should treat
every Twitter interaction. The most successful people and brands using Twitter are the ones who treat Twitter as an ongoing, open, and thought-provoking conversation rather than just a broadcast medium. These users are knowledgeable about their business, responsive to feedback, and respectful of the community.
Some Important Twitter Vernacular
Before we go any further, it’s important to familiarize yourself with the most common Twitter terminology as it will be used throughout this blog to describe the process of Twitter Marketing.
Twitter Terminology
Handle. A user’s Twitter name (e.g., hollisthomases).
Tweet. The message, consisting of 140 or fewer characters, sent by a Twitter user. On Twitter, these tweets are tracked in your user profile as Tweets.
Tweeting or Twittering. The act of composing and sending a message.
Retweet (RT). When someone forwards your tweet, or retweets, they put RT in front of it
to give you proper credit.
@ reply. The @ symbol directly in front of someone’s name (@hollisthomases) indicates you’re sending them a public message or responding to a message they sent you. It’s a publicly visible type of Twitter messaging between two users or more.
Direct message (DM). A DM sends a private message to another Twitter user. In order for them to receive this private message, they need to be following you. In order for you to receive a DM back, you need to be following them. To send a DM, use “D,” plus a space, plus the recipient’s Twitter handle. Do not use the @ symbol when you send a DM.
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