010+Twitter

Increasingly more companies use Twitter for business – to do market research, do brand advocacy and reputation management and provide selected highlights from a conference or event. Twitter allows them to expand their brand and thus generate new opportunities. ** 1. Expand Your Network ** Using Twitter, you can join topic groups related to your business and career and gain valuable information from scanning others’ tweets. Your company will gain new customers and potential partners. Do a search for keywords related to your product on Twitter Search and then follow the users. Anyone can use Twitter to build a personal brand. Your customers and prospective clients will perceive you as an approachable social personality. Twitter is designed to establish consistent and deeper relationships for future benefits. ** 2. Share Expertise to Build Credibility ** If you hold free workshops, seminars or web meetings; let people know that it’s starting soon, how to participate and join in by tweeting about it. You can also link to your presentations and videos. Twitter can help direct people’s attention to your events. Offer solutions to those who are struggling with something in your field of expertise. Share your ideas internally in a very efficient manner and broadcast links and headlines that can drive traffic to your website. ** 3. Highlight what’s Special ** Twitter allows you to share the latest news and events related to your business in 140 characters. Set up a Twitter feed for the specific purpose of notifying customers when new products come in. You can use this free platform to inform event participants and highlight what’s special. Sharing valuable information and useful tips helps you build a strong web presence and gain visibility on the Internet. ** 4. Look for Leads on Twitter ** Twitter can be used to direct traffic to your websites. You can share information that is useful for prospective clients or employers to enhance your reputation. Avoid hard-sell tactics: focus on building relationships. Don’t be afraid to take full advantage of Twitter and gather information about what customers, competitors and others are saying about your business. Don’t think of what you can get, but rather what you can learn and what you can offer. Use free applications like Mr. Tweet to check your profile and finds relevant connections for you. ** 5. Communicate with Employees ** Twitter is a great collaboration tool, which can be successfully used to save time and money. Forget about sending endless emails and calls – you can rather release short tweets to your team members describing what you have to say. Share what you’re doing so people learn about the type of work you do. ** 6. Run Special Deals & Promotions ** Offer incentives to those who follow you on Twitter. You can give them free coupons, discounts, package deals and samples. Twitter is a great way to create interest and secure attendees. Social networking is excellent for those who want to promote products, services and ideas directly to a target audience. Twitter marketing is a task that involves two-way audience engagement. ** 7. Receive Customer Complaints ** By accepting customer complaints in the open, other consumers can see what kind of company you really are. Twitter allows you to respond quickly to shut down any impending service or complaint received. Communicate effectively with each of your clients and ask for their honest opinion. Make your goals public to compel you to reach them. ** 8. Interact With Your Competition ** You can read the tweets of your competitors daily and stay in touch with them. Although this rarely happens in the real world, Twitter has changed it all. This free platform allows you to follow companies, experts, leaders and competitors in your industry. It’s not enough to monitor the latest projects released by your competitors. Tracking their mistakes is even more useful, because you can analyze their moves and see what exactly went wrong. ** 9. Organize a Local Tweetup ** Twitter can help you organize meetups. All you have to do is to send a message announcing the time and place of the meeting. It’s an informal and effective way of planning a meeting. You can get in touch with vendors, suppliers and other people with whom you can form partnerships. With Twitter, you can always stay in touch with your followers. All these people are potential customers, so you must help them get used to your products and services. Participate actively to conversations and tweet constantly. This way, increasingly more people will find out about your business, while you will gain loyal clients.
 * [] Dj Ashba from Guns & Roses **    Just arrived in Metz, France. Crawling into bed after a fun show in Zurich, Switzerland. G'nite FreakyTweets!              media type="custom" key="6870105"    ** Innovative Ways to Use Twitter For Business **

Social networking and micro-blogging sensation **Twitter** has spawned its own language, from the basic to the obscure. Knowing what common Twitter terms mean and how to use them correctly can help a Twitterer manage their Tweets effectively, and understand what their Followers are saying. ** Basic Twitter Terms ** Twitter has quickly become one of the largest social networking site in the world and as the service grows in popularity, so does the vocabulary and the conventions used (otherwise known as the Twittonary [|http://twittonary.com] ). Words used on Twitter can refer to an action, a convention or a tool. Most of the terms used centre around adding “Tw” as a prefix to existing words or around variations on the word Twitter. For example, Twitter users are referred to as Tweeters, Twitterers or Tweeple, and Tweets are the 140-character updates they post. To Follow refers to the process of signing up to receive someone’s Tweets, therefore making anyone who is following someone’s Tweets their Followers. The number of Followers a Twitterer has, as well as whom and how many they are Following appears on the user’s profile, with high numbers usually reflecting a popular Twitterer (for example, US President Barack Obama has over 400,000 Followers). There are two ways to contact a Follower directly. Direct Messages (DM) are private Tweets that only the Follower will see, while @replies (created by typing the @ symbol followed by the person’s username) will appear in the Tweet feed and are therefore visible to all Followers. These are both limited to 140 characters. ** Common Twitter Conventions ** Due to the high volume of Tweets, there are many Twitter terms that have sprung up from the Twitter community to aid in organisation and readability. Twitterers use the shorthand RT (Retweet) in front of something they are reposting or repeating from another user, usually an interesting link, quote or request. Hashtag refers to the convention of prefixing a word with a hash symbol in order to track, organise or filter Tweets by subject or category, and to provide context. For example, if someone is leading a Twitter discussion on common Twitter terms with their Followers, they could include #commonterms in their Tweet. This is an effective tool for keeping track of debates, common news items or popular topics and makes it easier to find topics in a search. ** Obscure Twitter Terms ** As well as the more practical Twitter tools and terms, there are a number of humorous and strange Twitter terms that have developed. Along with the Twitterati (the A-List Tweeple everyone wants to follow, including many celebrities), there are also plenty of Phweeters – people who set up fake twitter accounts of certain celebrities and personalities (e.g. Darth Vader and Chuck Norris). Tweeterboxes are people who Tweet too much, as is someone who is Twitterpated. A Dweet is a Tweet posted while drunk, a Twaggle is a gaggle of Followers, and Tweading means reading Tweets. The official Twitter Twittonary allows users to add their own terms and as the site grows, so do the number of tools, terms and shorthands.