Did you ever play a game of follow the leader at school? Whilst it was fun to follow the leader, it was much more fun to be the leader. Now this very notion has found its way to the Internet in the past few years, yet its participants are not children, and it has evolved from just a game to a mass form of communication and an urge to be connected.
In the last few years the Internet has exploded with communications tools. Blogs and social media have given everyone with Internet connectivity the ability to rant and rave about anything and everything. This freedom of speech comes with its pros and cons. Cons in that there is so much information on the Internet that it is sometimes hard to pinpoint what we may be trying to find as we desperately wade through conversation about what someone ate for lunch 10 minutes ago or perhaps someone seeking social approval for putting their Christmas tree up in October, but the pros far outweigh the cons. Breaking news is just that; no sooner an event happens and all the details with photos and videos are published online within what seems like seconds! Another pro is that this new form of communications also gives us a voice to communicate to the world about our business.
There was a time when the word twitter was seldom used, and when it was it described the occasional chatter birds made, but nowadays I hear the word twitter many times a day which either means that the birds are making a lot more conversation now, resulting in us talking about it more, or it has another meaning.
What exactly is Twitter? It is what you get when you merge a social media application which lets you shout out your every thought or action to the rest of the world with a blog, which lets you write themed content targeted for a specific audience. In fact this combination is called Microblogging because it provides publishing of messages limited to 140 characters in length.
So how could Twitter be useful given its limitation in message size? Firstly it is widely used meaning that it ranks well in search engines. It allows private and public messaging which are called “tweets” allowing you to target messages to specific audiences or to broadcast to anyone who cares to show an interest in you and follow you. It allows you to insert links which means that you can direct followers back to information on your web site. One of the most powerful features is that it also allows other people to resend your message to their followers, whilst giving you credit for having created it. This is likely to result in more twitter users following you.
If you do not want to be a twit, but would like to tweet, start using twitter to stay connected with your customers and gather a huge audience of avid followers in the process.
I’m a long time watcher and I just thought I’d stop by and say hello there for the first time. I really delight in your posts. Many thanks http://www.ctctradeshows.com
Thanks for dropping by to say hello and provide a comment, Janette. Your comments and feedback are always welcome.