As I stated in my SESSJ post Twitter was a hot topic at the conference. People were talking about it and people were using it. When Greg and I go to conferences we always turn on our mobile tweets so we can keep up with where everyone is and what everyone’s doing. God forbid we miss something good.
Between the two of us we have about 1700 followers (Greg has more damn it). Now I know a few hundred of those are bots, but the point is we’ve been on Twitter less than a year and that’s a lot of frickn people to be connected to throughout the day. In fact it was last year at Pubcon that Vanessa Fox forced talked us into signing up. We were very resistant to it. We thought it was totally lame and only for total nerds. Nine months later we are admittedly hooked on Twitter.
Twitter has so many benefits and the opportunities you can find on Twitter are endless. It isn’t going anywhere and with over one million users, everyday that passes before you join is a missed opportunity for you. Stop asking how and why. Stop saying you just don’t know what to do or what to say. Stop saying nobody cares what you would tweet about. It’s a simple question…What are you doing? Answer it a few times a day.
Still a hater? Let me give you some examples of some amazing, funny, interesting things that happen on Twitter.
Proposals
In March of 2008 the micro-blogging world was privy to its first virtual wedding proposal.
and she said
If you want to know more about this one you can check out the Wired post or follow them on Twitter.
Survival
In April of 08 James Karl Buck, a UC Berkeley graduate student, was in Egypt covering a protest when he and his translator were arrested. James reached for his cell phone and tweeted one word.
Now can you imagine the stress and anxiety you’d feel if you were across the world and got arrested and were unsure of what was going to happen to you. James was eventually released, but he had the comfort knowing that all of his followers knew what had happened. Not planning on traveling to foreign countries? Replace the word arrested with ‘accident’ or ‘robbed’ or ‘help’. It could come in handy.
Finding a Job
Look out Monster here comes Twitter.
Customer Service
Many companies are using Twitter to reach out to their customers and to keep an ear open for people talking about them.
Now I know from first hand experience that when you complain about @southwestair on Twitter, they respond. Just one more reason why I FLY SWA. A couple other companies tweeting are @starbucks and @jetblue.
Diggs
You might totally suck at getting stories to the Digg front page (not saying this guy does), but if you have enough people following you on Twitter, you may just get enough of a boost to get noticed on the Digg upcoming. Of course your story still has to be good.
Host a Party
So just like that, we’re having a party. Tony tweets it and all of his followers in LA get the message and we are getting together (the 6th is fine for me Tony, see you at the Bow).
Having a Baby
I found this one on BlogHer. Now granted she didn’t actually do it because well, she wasn’t in labor long enough :/. It’s only a matter of time though.
Expose Dumbness
Michael Gray is really good at this. In fact if there were a crown for the best Twitterer…he’d be wearing it.
In case you’re wondering what Michael is talking about here’s the link to the LA Times home page. I’d actually be interested in an explanation too.
Ask a Question
Chris wrote up a great presentation about Twitter using all of his responses from this question. Just brilliant!
Breaking News
This past week I have been marveling about how so many of my bloggy mom friends are at the DNC. My tweets from them have gone crazy and I almost feel like I was there. Getting all this breaking news every few seconds is better than watching it on TV.
I hope you’re more intrigued and give it a try. Just do it. Join Twitter today and of course follow @barbaraboser and @gregboser.
{ 1 trackback }
{ 12 comments }
Terrific summary of Twitter uses Barbara. You’ll surely have more followers after people (and bots) read this.
I tweet because all my SEO idols are there and it’s nice to get up-to-date.
Probably not the right area to talk about this since this is really about twitter than the internal nofollow.
I think some people are sooo obsessed with PR, they tend to control it internally within a site minimizing outgoing links to some places to redivert the juice to other places they want to perform better.
Probably also connected with Rand’s post on Moz, the 2nd link on a single page going to the same place is not counted as another link. And if they believe, that, maybe they are trying to choose the links to follow that have the anchor text they desire.
Now if I believe in that or not is another story. I kind of believe in the PR hoarding trying to control the greenbar especially if you are a link seller or sponsored review seller since you can ask for a higher price.
But if this is necessary to make other pages rank higher than others, probably something I am not 100% convinced with. They are all internal links anyway all from the same site. And I have no obsession on PR like other PR addicts I know, as long as ranking and conversions are good.
And for those more search marketing blogosphere minded, it’s great for Sphinns too
.
About the jobs bit, I haven’t had much success with that. It’s the difference between content network and search (e.g. job boards).
Twitter enhances the workday in much the same manner as the music I listen to…sometimes it’s in the foreground, sometimes it’s in the background, and sometimes I ignore it entirely or turn it off.
this doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface! it’s a great collection of the ways people are using twitter…i had no idea about the proposal:)
i find the mobile effects to be fascinating. i find out all kinds of happenings around chicago on weekend nights that have more than once caused me to change plans. tweetups, concerts, events. local food recommendations.
oh, and i call twitter the Human Google…rather than search up some arcane fact on my blackberry, i just twitter a question and get the answer in like five minutes.
incredible.
I was a little hesitant to join Twitter at first, but I’ll have to admit that after a while I began to learn the real value of it as a networking tool. I’ll admit it – I’m hooked.
Your post has convinced me to give it another shot. I’m new to the SEO field, so maybe I’ll learn a bit from some of the masters via twitter.
Twitter is a strong and original marketing and communication tool but isn’t there a limit to it?! I mean it’s time consuming!
Follow me to Twitter…
I have grown a fond fascination with Twitter. I hear about news so much quicker, by subscribing to my local papers and major news organizations like CNN.
It’s such a great tool… even if you do use it for diggs, which I confess I do everyonce in awhile.
Well, I’m finally on Twitter thanks to you…
Who could resist now that you’ve spelled it all out so clearly? Thanks Barbara.
(Used my profile there as my “Author Name” here – incase anyone wants to follow me LOL)
Love this. I learned the power of Twitter when I tweeted about my dismal service from Comcast. (It was a two-word tweet that started with the f-word and ended with Comcast and pointed to my blog that contained a letter to their SVP of customer service.) I got three phone calls that night from various people at Comcast, and they didn’t stop calling me daily until the problem was fixed. It was a brilliant display of customer service and technology.
Comments on this entry are closed.