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vangogh
05-13-2009, 06:01 PM
I know quite a few of you still don't get Twitter and in truth it usually takes awhile using it to begin to understand how it can be valuable.

Found this article, The Definitive Guide to Twitter (http://blog.timandren.com/tim_andrens_blog_impactbi/2009/05/the-definitive-guide-to-twitter.html) (don't let the word definitive throw you off), that's really a pretty good explanation of some of the ways people can use Twitter.

What Twitter is (or can be)

Twitter is your own personal army of worker bees
Twitter is a chat room
Twitter is a news source
Twitter is a search engine
Twitter is a group of communities
Twitter is a network and sharing portal
Twitter is a focus group
Twitter is a customer service interface

You may not find Twitter useful for all of the above, but it can be. More likely you'll find it useful for a few of the above. My favorite way to use it lately is for market research.

Hopefully the article can help a few of you see the potential for Twitter.

Do you use Twitter in a way that's not on the list?

Patrysha
05-13-2009, 07:15 PM
public relations activities like :
monitoring media reports
looking for media/story leads
connecting with media
connecting with industry leaders

But mostly I just describe Twitter as a tool to help my clients connect with their target market in a measurable way.

vangogh
05-14-2009, 12:23 AM
Good uses. I have networked with some industry leaders, but I often find they're a closed off group. It's been easier to network with people similar to myself, which is still good. In fact better since it's led to some real relationships with people.

With tools like TweetDeck and Seesmic (my new Twitter tool) I have searches set up for a few things I want to track. It's a great way to listen in on what your market is saying about a particular topic.

rezzy
05-14-2009, 01:09 AM
Same here, I acutally use it find customers, as I mentioned before. I dont engage in active marketing. No one wants to marketed to, so I help others and if you see Ive got skills, youll contact me.

Samething with the forums. :)

vangogh
05-14-2009, 01:25 AM
I haven't gained a client through Twitter, though it did indirectly lead to a nice writing gig. I do go in to help people. WordPress and related are words I have set up as searches. I'll follow mentions of those words and offer help to people when I can. It's led to a few emails and I assume some branding of me as a WordPress developer.

KristineS
05-14-2009, 01:19 PM
I think the biggest attraction for me when it comes to Twitter is that it allows me to connect with people I will probably never meet in real life. My world is now literally the whole world instead of the town or state where I live.

Plus, it is a great way to communicate your message on your terms. It doesn't have to be filtered through anyone else first.

vangogh
05-14-2009, 03:29 PM
Both true. What I like the most about Twitter is all the different ways it can be used. You really don't have to use it every way other people do to find value in it. I thought the article I linked to did a nice job of showing many of the potential ways you might find find Twitter useful. I think often people look at it with a very limited idea that it's just about driving traffic and then if you don't get traffic you move on to something else. Twitter is hardly perfect and it's not going to be something for everyone, but there are a lot of potential ways to derive value from it.

phanio
05-14-2009, 06:50 PM
I do not use twitter and have not really thought about it much. But you all make good points. I like helping others and sharing knowledge (although my writing could use some help). What is the best way to get started? What are key requirements (e.g. tools, groups, etc) that someone should be involved with?

seolman
05-14-2009, 07:45 PM
Right now I have an "almost" client that I can say with 100% certainty came from Twitter.

I do see spikes in my site traffic (blog) as a result of Twitter posts and all my business comes from either word of mouth or web searches. So I'm sure Twitter is a contributing factor at some level to helping our overall web & SEO business grow but I wouldn't say it was a huge factor just yet. I have to thank one-eared Steve for getting me into Twitter, it's been great fun and it has been great for many of my clients.

vangogh
05-15-2009, 10:51 AM
Cool about the "almost" client.

Twitter does drive traffic my way. Not a lot, but spikes when someone mentions my my site. By the way your Twitter profile ranks #1 for 'seolman' and it's on the second page when you search your name.

Another use of all social media is being able to control the SERPs for your name or username.

KristineS
05-15-2009, 12:47 PM
I do not use twitter and have not really thought about it much. But you all make good points. I like helping others and sharing knowledge (although my writing could use some help). What is the best way to get started? What are key requirements (e.g. tools, groups, etc) that someone should be involved with?

Getting started is as easy as setting up an account. Once you've done that, start looking for people to follow. You can search terms to find people who are talking about subjects that interest you. Another way to find people to follow is to spread the word on forums like this. If someone follows you, follow them back if they seem interesting. I don't recommend sending automatic "thanks for following" messages, as those are annoying. Also, don't feel compelled to follow everyone. In my opinion, Twitter should be about quality, not quantity. There are people with thousands of followers, but that's because they'll follow anyone.

There are several software programs designed for Twitter. I don't use any of them at the moment, so I'm not really qualified to give you advice there. I imagine Vangogh could though.

vangogh
05-15-2009, 06:53 PM
Joseph one thing to know about Twitter is that at first it can seem dumb and a complete waste of time. You need to be following a few people at first, but not too many. Follow people you know and people you'd like to know. You can also follow people you simply find interesting. Lots of news sources are also tweeting.

Many of us have linked to our Twitter profiles in another thread. That should get you started.

There are a lot of desktop clients you can use, which make the service much better and easier to use (Kristine you really need to try some). A few that I've used and recommend are

TweetDeck (http://www.tweetdeck.com/)
Seesmic (http://desktop.seesmic.com/)
Twhirl (http://www.twhirl.org/)

All three run on top of Adobe Air and each will download and install Air for you. If you haven't used Adobe Air it's pretty cool. Easy way to run applications cross platform.

I'm using Seesmic now, which is still in the early stages of development. TweetDeck and Seesmic both let you organize the people you're following into different groups. For example I have groups set up for Design, SEO, WordPress, News, etc. Both also let you set up searches and track what's being said. You could set up a search for your name or company name and track what's being said about you. You could do the same for your competition.

I set up searches for market research too. Imagine you're thinking of developing a new widget. You can run different searches around the word widget and see what people are saying about them. What they like and what they don't like.

KristineS
05-16-2009, 12:43 PM
You're right, I do need to try a Twitter program, Vangogh. I tried Tweetdeck and didn't really find it worked well for me. I also tried Twhirl briefly, but I could try it again. Seesmic sounds interesting, I might try that one. Now that I have multiple Twitter accounts, some way to organize them would be useful.

I'll have to give that some thought.

Spider
05-16-2009, 01:48 PM
But, the time?!!

I have recently joined Facebook and that is a huge time sink. I don't know how many great-sounding articles and courses and websites I have flown by because I cannot read it all. Not to mention the clutter of Mary washing her hair tonight and Jack's video of his kids sliding down their new garden slide thing. No real conversations seem possible, just short hit-and-run remarks.

Now you want me to join Twitter as well?

Tell me (briefly, please, I haven't checked my F/B page yet this morning!) why I should drop Facebook and use Twitter instead, because I certainly cannot see the sense of using both.

I am feeling very overwhelmed by technology at ths point in time.

vangogh
05-17-2009, 01:03 AM
It does take time. Networking in general takes time. The people you call friends today, how many did you consider friends the first time you met. Don't all your business relationships take time to grow. How long did it take you to grow your offline network?

Another offline comparison. Imagine you're in a book store and you see someone pick up a book you read and liked. Maybe you strike up a quick conversation about the book. Do you ever contact that person again? Probably not. A week later you sit down in your favorite coffee shop and guess who walks in? You ask him to join you and you have a nice conversation. A month later your at a conference and yep, he's there again. By now you've made a connection and have built a relationship in part because you connected in a variety of ways.

If you connect with someone, even briefly on Facebook, and then connect on Twitter, your relationship will be that much stronger.

I don't spend all day on any of these sites. Some days I never look at them at all. Maybe I open my Twitter client and let it run in the background. In between projects I take a look and see who's around. Perhaps I leave a couple of quick replies or post a link. Then I get back to work. You can do a few short bursts on social sites throughout the day to more effectively manage your time.

KristineS
05-17-2009, 01:34 PM
It does take time. Especially since if you really want to be successful and connect with people you have to take time to communicate and not just push your own agenda.

For a long time I was very firm in my stance that Twitter was stupid. Then I tried it and started making some connections and realized that you get out of it what you put into it. Now I enjoy Twitter and the people I've connected with through that site.

I prefer Twitter over Facebook. I have a Facebook account, but I don't do much with it. Facebook, to me, seems to be less about communication. Twitter is all about communication, and that meets my needs better than Facebook does.

vangogh
05-17-2009, 11:28 PM
Just want to add that you don't need to join any of these sites to be successful. But each site on its own and social networking sites in general can be a great way to network with people online.

This thread was simply to show how some people are currently using Twitter and why they think it's valuable. If you're interested in using Twitter then these are some of the ways other people are using it.

Spider
05-18-2009, 11:28 AM
Well, for better or for worse, I am forgoing Twitter without having tried it in favor of Facebook and LinkedIn, plus SBF and a couple of other discussion forum. All told, I probably spend at least 3 or 4 hours a day in total on such computerized meandering. I count this as my personal time - y'know what used to be "after work" in the old days before the 9-5 workday disappeared and the 6am-11pm waking hours became one continuous stream of 'things to do.'

If anyone feels to add another friend or connection, I invite your request--

Facebook Profile - Frederick Pearce, Coach, Business Mentor and Personal Coach (http://frederickpearce.com/facebook)
LinkedIn Profile - Frederick Pearce, Coach, Business Mentor and Personal Coach (http://frederickpearce.com/linkedin)


BTW - why don't you add Facebook and LinkedIn to the Bookmarks section below?

vangogh
05-18-2009, 12:01 PM
It's obviously your choice whether or not to use Twitter. No one is going to tell you that you have to use the service. Just wanted to present some ideas for why you might want to use Twitter.

The bookmarks thing below was just the default with vBulletin. I'll see if I can find how to add more. I don't think you can bookmark content directly to LinkeIn so that might not be an option, but I'll check on Facebook and any others that seem like a good idea to add.

Facebook added

Mozzy
05-18-2009, 01:19 PM
Thanks guys for al your contributions on this thread. I have recently joined Twitter and I am definately realizing that it is a slow process networking with people out there through it but I can definitely see how in the long run it can reap massive rewards and there people you never knew you'd ever meet.

vangogh
05-18-2009, 01:52 PM
It does take time and at first Twitter can seem like nothing but a time waster. Give it a few months to get the feel for it. I find it helps a lot if you're following people you know or want to get to know.

vangogh
05-28-2009, 10:05 PM
Found another guide to Twitter. This one is 33 reasons to use Twitter (http://www.searchenginepeople.com/blog/33-reasons-to-use-twitter-a-guide-to-finding-value-in-the-service.html). The list is divided into two main groups. From a marketers perspective and From a personal perspective.

I know some people still don't get Twitter or think it's a dumb service where people share what they ate for lunch, but it really does have great uses for things like market research, brand building, promotion, and networking. All things we need to be doing.