Twitter of course! Twitter is a social networking tool with a difference. Twitter lets you network with users by updating their ‘status’ in short 140 character messages called ‘Tweets’. You network with other Twitter users by ‘following’ them. When you follow a user all that user’s updates appears in your ‘timeline’, which is a list of all updates on the people you follow and of yourself of course. You can directly converse with other users publicly or privately. Publicly you converse with other users by attributing ‘@username’ in the beginning of your post. All @replies may be filtered and viewed, may appear in a separate timeline and/or have a different color depending on your Twitter client. Direct messages operate similar to traditional private messaging where messages appear in your inbox and is private.
Twitter is used by several big names as well. Twitter was used as a campaigning tool for President Barack Obama during the elections. Twitter is also being increasingly used by celebrities to keep fans informed in a ‘diary’ style of what their day consists of, and of course to promote themselves and establish their brand as well.
Twitter is commonly described as a micro-blogging service. While based on the description above (and that’s it really in terms of features) Twitter seems like a simple social networking service. However, looking closely you will find it’s so much more than that. Firstly, it can be used as a direct method to connect with other users. Looking at it in a marketer’s perspective though it can be used to gain publicity, it can be used to drive traffic to your website, product or service. URL’s can be tweeted as well (which are shortened using services like TinyURL), thus exposing your services to all of your followers. Tweets can be ‘retweeted’, where when a use receives a tweet, tweets the same status as their update allowing your content, product or service to be spread virally across a large audience if you provide something impressive. It can be used to build your brand online. You can customize your twitter page with your company logo, acknowledge your Twitter ID with your company name, notify followers of new projects. etc.
It can be used by Bloggers and readers as a substitute to feed readers as well. New blog posts and news stories can be automatically tweeted using services like Twitterfeed thus making Twitter a virtual feed aggregrator and social networking tool in one. It’s also used by the media to provide another form of conveying content and updates to the general audience. CNN, BBC, and Fox (to name a few) provide Twitter as an option for their audience to be updated by.
If you are a Blogger, Twitter is a great way to connect with top Bloggers like Darren Rowse, ShoeMoney, John Chow, etc. With the exponential growth of the service in recent times, with many individuals and organizations embracing twitter as a publicity and networking tool, several new tools and services related to Twitter are been established, wise move if you ask me.
Several services like Twittad (monetizing your Twitter page), Twitpic (image sharing service integrated with Twitter), TwitStat (statistics on twitter profiles) etc. are being continually launched enhancing and simplifying your Twitter experience.
Apart from services, there are hundreds of Twitter clients as well allowing you to tweet with an interface and client you are comfortable with. Tweetdeck, Twhirl and Disgby are a few of the popular ones to name a few. Personally I use Twitterfox, a simple, compact Firefox addon, recommended only if you are a light user though, which I am, atleast for now. You can see a recommended list of Twitter clients on the Twitter official site or in this list based on platform by Mobility Hacks.
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As you can imagine, Twitter is all over the blogosphere, here are a few interesting posts worth checking out on Twitter:
Don’t be surprised if you initially find Twitter boring or don’t see the point of it and find that it’s actually pretty cool sometime later. Problogger (“I was a little slow getting onto Twitter last year (when so many other bloggers embraced it). To be honest I didn’t think it had much to offer me – I’m beginning to see how wrong I was.” ), ShoeMoney (“For a long time I did not understand twitter. I thought it was pretty stupid.“) and myself would be good examples of this.
Have I convinced you enough yet? Join Twitter now and start tweeting!
Joined Twitter? Don’t forget to leave your feedback and your Twitter ID’s below!
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