Micro Blogging Mania

Few trends have taken over the Web as quickly as micro-blogging – specifically Twitter. According to Compete.com, Twitter.com received more than 8 million page views in February 2009, up from about 5 million in December, 2008. Embraced by everyone from celebrities like Demi Moore and Shaquille O’Neal, notables like President Barack Obama and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, and high tech giants Cisco, Oracle, Intel and others, Twitter’s user base is growing rapidly every month. If your company doesn’t have a Twitter account, you should probably consider getting one.

Make No Mistake: Your Twitter Account is a Blog.
It just happens to have a 140 character limit for each post, though many of the same blogging guidelines apply. Twitter users want to see content relevant to their interests. That means not only updating with links to new products, but providing information in your industry that is relevant to your blog’s focus. That doesn’t mean you can’t attempt to sell a product through a link on Twitter, but be sparing with your pitches.

Real-time Rapport
For a marketer, Twitter does have an edge over most advertising mediums – immediacy. Here are some examples of a few companies who have taken full advantage of this immediacy.

• Dell – has more than 80 Twitter accounts and uses them for a variety of tasks, most notably time sensitive deals on PCs and laptops.
• Intuit – ran an innovative promotion earlier this year that gave awards for creative responses.
• ASHA (American Speech-Language Hearing Association) – prior to their annual convention announced that they would be using Twitter, and encouraged members and exhibitors to sign up so they could follow updates. It turned out to be a great tool for interacting with members and exhibitors in several ways. They were able to make live announcements (that otherwise would have been impossible since the convention daily had been pre-printed) and interact with members about special events while they were at the show.

Brand Recognition
Twitter might have an easier time incorporating advertising than a network like Facebook, as many users are already networking with businesses and are accustomed to seeing product-related updates. But for now, the best way to market through Twitter is simply through brand recognition and links to your blog. Take a look at ShortURL.com, BudURL.com and Cli.gs. These services will take your blog post’s long URL and shrink it for Twitter posting, and they include analytics so you can see what content is working best with your followers.

Whether Twitter will turn into a true advertising medium or revenue generating source is still anyone’s guess. But let’s face it. It’s a great tool for listening to what your customers have to say, and it continues to be one of the hottest things going.