"Twitter" & "Tweeting" - does it offer anything to the Business Community?

[Toby Smith]

We have all heard of this phenomena, but what does it offer us - that is the business's within Falkirk and environs?

For me, personally, the jury is out as I (despite having an account) am struggling to see what the hype is all about. We are, after all, limited to a 140 word "text" message and what can we expect from this from a promotional prospective...but can I share this with you all.

Speaking from someone involved within the industry, my personal belief is that there are other and more beneficial platforms we can all use such as Blogger, BTtradespace etc. as they all seem to provide greater features. Would be interested in feedback from any other Twitter user.

[Toby Smith]

I have witnessed similar "incidents" of this happening. I think it would be fair to say that your blog topic is a red hot subject at the moment!

[Rob Willox]

Just an example of how Twitter can drive traffic to site.

Posted a blog item about an hour ago entitled Does Bing Sing! then about 15 mins ago went to Twitter and added a tweet about the launch with a link to the blog post.

Within 1 minute there had been 23 visits to the blog post (and as I write this another two just popped up).

Used judiciously can drive traffic!

[Toby Smith]

Good summary Rob. My "news" Twitter account is purely local, Falkirk District orientated news and I am constantly surprised at the growing local followers. On this account I do not promote anything apart from our area and local press-releases which I have permissions for. These are also duplicated on other platforms where my "favourite" is Social Median.

On my more commercial account, I promote my clients (as well as myself, of course!) and again, increasing followers but this site is only used to assist new URL's for ranking purposes. Depending on the industrial classification of the client with their respective URL, but have quite often witnessed p.1 ranking with Twitter.

Using all of these platforms can and is time consuming. Their true benefit can only be quantified by their results and to end on a confession, when I first adopted this multi-platform "broadcasting", I was horrified by the personal time wasted by being absorbed in other people's twitters! Go canny!

[Rob Willox]

Analyst firm Gartner has issued a new report that outlines best practice guidelines for businesses that want to reap the benefits of Twitter, without putting their organisation's public face at risk.
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Gartner has predicted that business micro-blogging will be a standard feature of 80 per cent of social software platforms on the market within the next two years, and the rising popularity of Twitter has prompted many users to ask for advice on how to put the service to business use.

Firstly, Gartner urged companies to be wary of using Twitter as a type of corporate blog, where they promote accomplishments, push out press releases and use the service to respond to comments about their brands.

The report praised companies for registering their brand names on Twitter because it prevents others claiming them and using them inappropriately, but warned that organisations should only start using the account if they are fully aware how to manage the posts.

"Uninteresting or self-serving 'tweets' could hinder the brand image as much as it could help," said the Gartner report. "Responding to comments can be particularly risky, as the anonymous nature of Twitter can easily descend into a negative spiral."
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After first setting up an account the first actions should be to find some 'twits' to follow (ones that you have an interest in and can contribute to).

The suggestion is that once you are following a few individuals you should post in response to their twitters with something that is relevant. Every 8/10 posts you can include a link back to your site or a blog post (the main criterion is that it is relevant to the post).

Some more suggestions on how Twitter can be used and help build brand and you can be seen as influential and worth following:-

Be useful, original and contributive
The criterion, like most promotional activity on the internet, is providing value.
Don’t over-twit
Don't just post for the sake of it but in response to another tweet, a news item or something specific to your interests.
Don’t under-twit
Be consistent and regular (once a day/once a week/once an hour).
Don’t over-publicize
Twitter is not an advertising medium and simply using it as such will not attract followers and not be as beneficial as it could be.
Brand your profile
Create a background for your home page that reflects your business, brand or the content of your tweets.
Reply to twits
It's a viral environment. All that “@” user inter-twitting will get you noticed by your follower’s followers and so on. But be careful in what you say as it can spread quickly.
Take the opportunity to publicize and promote your twitter account
Whenever you get the chance to promote your twitter account, do it! Put a link leading towards your account on all of your other social media profiles, like digg, stumbleupon, mixx and so on.

It's not an exhaustive list but it's a starting point.

[Toby Smith]

Hello Diana, being involved within the "industry", so to speak, I follow these subjects with great interest and this is the latest upturn - read the following and hot off the press!

"Larry Page and Eric Schmidt from Google did a double header interview from the Google Zeitgeist conference just outside of London today. But the real question on our lips was what is Google going to do about the astounding buzz around realtime search and Twitter?

During a press conference I asked the question of of of Google’s executives, and the answer came back that “the kind of innovation like what Twitter is doing and what we’re doing is increasing search speed, relevance , freshness and comprehensiveness. Other companies will come up with solutions of course.”

Not a great answer.

Luckily, Loic Le Meur is also here and put Larry on the spot on stage, and captured:

“I have always thought we needed to index the web every second to allow real time search. At first, my team laughed and did not believe me. With Twitter, now they know they have to do it. Not everybody needs sub-second indexing but people are getting pretty excited about realtime.”

See, Larry actually came up with the idea first." - click on the full article for further information.

On a personal note, I "satellite" some of my work on Twitter and am staggered at their search engine rankings! So....there may well be something in this?

[Diana]

I have started using Twitter because I have heard other poeple on various other forums all saying that they had joined and what fun it is. I had also heard that it is supposed to help you business as well. I have someone on my follow list who constantly leaves twitters directing people to her Etsy site for her jewellery. Whereas I tend to just blether on about things I have done that day. What I am doing, I am sure doesn't inspire people to come and buy from me but equally I find it annoying that this person who is following me directs me to a shopping basket on her website.
I have this dream that by being on twitter my work will be spotted by a very important person and they will give me a very good commission for which I will get some top free advertising for. In the meantime, I will reserve my judgement on the usefulness of Twitter.