Are you thinking about tweeting for your business or organization? I’m not sure it’s being taught yet in business 101 courses, so I’ll share some of what I’m learning thus far.
- First, I came across a Harvard Business Publishing blog for business managers—Conversation Starter. Harvard bloggers Bill Heil and Mikolaj Piskorski set out to answer the question, “Is Twitter a communications service for friends and groups, a means of expressing yourself freely, or simply a marketing tool?”
Posted on June 1, 2009, “New Twitter Research: Men Follow Men and Nobody Tweets Heil and Piskorski end with this: “…Twitter resembles more of a one-way, one-to-many publishing service more than a two-way, peer-to-peer communication network.”
- An Internet marketing research company, HubSpot (further referenced below), reported that in 2008, Twitter was growing at an astounding rate of 5,000 to 10,000 new accounts every day. This year (2009), the numbers are accelerating at such a rate that it’s futile to continue generating a flat growth number. So if you’re simply looking to instantly mass communicate your brand or message, Twitter certainly has organic potential.
- Even world-renown celebrities, such as Oprah, and world-famous, mega-church pastors tweet. Oprah’s tweets can be found at http://twitter.com/OPRAH. Here in Houston, where I live, Joel Osteen pastors one of the largest churches in America, Lakewood Church. Osteen is also a bestselling author with a globally televised ministry. His church has been identified as the largest church in America, and his tweets can be found at http://twitter.com/joelosteenmin. Apparently some high profilers in the messaging business find it worth their time to tweet.
If you’re in business, you’re also in the message or brand-promotion business. Here are a few resources that I found while researching information about online social media tools, such as Twitter. Any size business might find them useful:
- I subscribe to an e-newsletter published by Gerry McGovern, who is regarded as one of the world’s foremost authority on managing Web content. On July 1, 2009, he discussed secrecy versus openness on the Web, and he wrote, “Perhaps the challenge and the opportunity of the modern world are to achieve openness and simplicity.”
Perhaps those elements that McGovern identifies above help explain why Twitter is gaining such worldwide traction. With a 140-character limitation per tweet, Twitter messages are, undeniably simple.
- If you are wondering—“Where can I learn more about Twitter and its potential?”—here is another online resource that impressed me. HubSpot is an Internet marketing company that specializes in helping small businesses get noticed on the Web. They also work to help people evaluate and improve their Twitter presence. This they accomplish by researching and producing reports using their Twitter data-gathering tool found at http://twitter.grader.com/.
One report is titled, “State of the Twittersphere: Q4 2008” and a follow-up report is titled, “State of the Twittersphere: June 2009.” Information contained in these reports was based on a pool of over 4.5 million Twitter users.
I found HubSpot after reading a blog by its CEO and Founder, Brian Halligan, titled, “Four Ways the Internet is Transforming Small Business.” In its short history, this company has earned numerous prestigious awards, recognitions and accolades; and they appear dedicated to helping small businesses succeed.
Finally, I say this to myself almost each and every day: think before you post electronic information. As with any electronic publishing or social networking tool, it’s important to remember that once digital information goes out there, it can then be considered a permanent record.
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