Tweet

Introduction: What is Twitter?

Written by: Yolanda Allen

Article Overview: Have you heard about Twitter? Twitter has become an online phenomenon. Here is a quick introduction to what Twitter is and how you can use it.

Introduction: What is Twitter?

Twitter has become a major internet phenomenon, so much so that there is even a cell phone commercial that makes fun of parents using Twitter at the chagrin of their teenagers. Twitter has definitely become main stream.

Twitter is a social networking site called a micro-blog. Blog posts, called tweets, can only be 140 characters long, so you have to become adept at getting your point across in the least amount of words.

Twitter is being used by celebrities, brick and mortar businesses, online businesses, internet marketers, causes, and special interests such as crafting, fishing, gardening, and global warming. Politicians are even getting on the band wagon. For example, President Obama used Twitter for publicity by providing updates on his presidential campaign. If there is a niche that you are interested in, there are probably people on Twitter who share your interest.

Anyone can open a Tweeter account (it's free), and you can have more than one account. People who chose to read your tweets are called your followers. You also choose to follow other people. You can read their tweets and your followers can read yours. You can check out the tweets of someone and decide if you want to follow them. You can also see how many people they are following, how many people are following them, and their list of "followees" and followers. Access to this information makes it easy to find people you might want to follow.

Keep in mind that almost everything in Twitter is public, to include tweets and lists of followers. You can, however, choose to make your tweets private so that people have to request access. This feature makes Twitter useful for group collaboration. However, tweets from members of the group may be visible by their followers, so you might want to consider creating private member accounts just for group participation.

The basic question Twitter asks is "What are you doing?" People will share what their eating for dinner, what movie they're going to see, or even that they're walking their dog (you can set up your account to send updates through your cell phone). However you're not limited to this basic question. Twitter is being used to share ideas, promote products, ask questions, provide updates, and share just about anything. You're only limited by your imagination.

Twitter is not for everyone. Some people can't fathom why anyone would want to share or read about the everyday stuff that happens in life. But there are people who do want to know. People are fascinated with other people. It's human nature. Just think about all the tabloids and magazines that are just about people. There is definitely a "market" for people. Also think about all the magazines that cover different subjects. If there's a magazine on a topic, there are more than likely tweets about the subject too.

I hope this introduction helps you understand what Twitter is and the possibilities of using Twitter. I encourage you to open an account on Twitter and start checking it out. Oh and by the way, you can follow me too. Just search for my user name, allenyoli. I'll follow you back.

Happy Business Building,

Yoli

Related Articles
  You're Addicted to Twitter If You..
  How Twitter can have a postive effect on your business
  Blogging, Articles and Twitter - A Powerful Marketing Combination
  Is Twitter For The Birds?
  Four Easy Twitter Tools to Supplement Your Marketing

Article Tags: what is twitter, what is twitter and how does it work, what is twitter for, what is twittering
Referred by: http://jaykubassek.com



Related Forum Posts
Re: Using Twitter To Double Your Traffic? - I'm sure in many cases Twitter sends more traffic than Search Engines because most people don't have good enough SE rankings to get SE traffic. But anyone can get Twitter traffic. The problem is that Twitter traffic won't convert for the most part and SE traffic will. I'd venture to say that 98% of the time getting just 100 visitors from search is better than getting 2000+ from Twitter.
How to Use Twitter to Market Products? - How do you use Twitter to market products? Has the Twitter route given you good results? Please share your experience and ideas on how to use Twitter to take a product to the customers. Thank you in advance.
Re: Social Media Works If You Do It Right... - Hi Michelle, Ah, but it seems hashtags are still being used by a lot of people - including Twitter! So I would still use them for your keywords. It's just that if you are searching for something on Twitter you can either go the #hashtag route, or do a direct search on the Twitter homepage. I guess you could use #hashtags when searching on the Twitter homepage as well! DH
Re: Facebook or Twitter? - Thanks for the feedback guys! I personally started with Twitter and am now moving over to Facebook. I polled people on both my accounts and (not surprisingly) the Twitter people said Twitter and the Facebook people said Facebook! The actual order of my social media presence looks like this: 1) LinkedIn (with little success) 2) Twitter 3) YouTube 4) Facebook
Re: Twitter vs Facebook - I use Facebook pages for Business and rarely ever use Twitter. I hace lost count of the no. of Hotels that I have visited, regarding their marketing campaigns, that may have 5k Facebook Fans and only 100 followers on Twitter. It is a lot more difficult to engage with people on Twitter and thus harder to gain traction. If you are a business like Nike, then Twitter is great, but if you are an SME, then focus on Facebook or LinkedIn (if you are providing a professional service.) You can always have your Facebook feed directly in to Twitter, so you can have a presence on both, but do the work on one. Also check out ping.fm for managing campaigns - it is a free tool, and a great time saver.


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Tweet

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

Resolving A Conflict Between Two Sales Staffs

What Aweber Can Do For Your Online Business

Setting Goals for your Home Based Business

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.