A friend was on MSN today, and basically asked “What’s this Twitter business, and what use might I get out of it?”. Twitter, unless you’ve been hiding under a big old rock, has been taking the internet by storm and particularly since the start of 2009. It’s been a relatively slow burner having launched in 2006, but several celebrity Twitter stories – including the alleged break up of Jennifer Aniston and John Mayer due to his Twitter fascination – have helped fuel the fire. As of today, Stephen Fry (http://twitter.com/stephenfry) and Jonathan Ross (http://twitter.com/wossy) have over 390,000 and 195,000 Twitter followers respectively. Clearly it’s a growing medium, but how can you use it to drive business or traffic to your websites?
Let’s break some potential uses for Twitter into a few easy categories:
1. Business Services Provider
Some innovative B2B service providers such as hosting companies and software service providers have been using Twitter to keep their customers up to date about service notifications, special offers, or new products. One great example is Irish hosting company Blacknight Solutions (http://twitter.com/blacknight) who use Twitter to offer special offers coupon codes to their customers, and answer customer queries on a range of issues.
2. Publisher / Blogger
If you run an online news service or are a blogger, you can use Twitter to drive repeat traffic to your website. Personally, I follow The Guardian Tech (http://twitter.com/guardiantech) and Mashable (http://twitter.com/mashable) to keep informed of new breaking stories. A website which I own, CelebrityGossip.ie, uses Twitter to drive around 10% of daily traffic to the website (http://twitter.com/celebritygoss). There are various plugins available which you can set up to ‘tweet’ new stories to your Twitter account when you create new content. Some of these include Twitter Tools (for WordPress) and the ‘Twitter‘ module for Drupal.
3. Consumer Goods / Services Provider
Many online retailers are now using Twitter to announce new products and special offers to consumers, as well as hold competitons and giveaways. Littlewoods have a Twitter account (http://twitter.com/LittlewoodsDeal) where they post instore special offers, and Dell Outlet (http://twitter.com/delloutlet) have over 290,000 followers, all eager to get last minute deals on electronics. Lastminute.com have a Twitter account (http://twitter.com/lastminute_com) for travel buffs, but unfortunately don’t really promote it enough on their homepage.
4. Recruitment
Twitter is increasingly becoming a valued tool for businesses to bring down their recruitment costs. I frequently see businesses use the service to post links to job descriptions, while asking politely for a ReTweet (RT). One recent example would be London based Irish entrepreneur Paul Walsh (http://twitter.com/PaulWalsh) recruiting for his new start up, Wubud (http://api.twitter.com/PaulWalsh/status/1315512563). There’s also a Twitter Job Search engine twitterjobsearch.com.
5. Networking
One great way to generate business is to network and get yourself and your products ‘out there’. With that in mind, there are several Twitter Directories such as Wefollow, Twitdir, and Twellow cropping up. Just submit your details and your Twitter url, and you’ll have heaps of people following you in no time. Of course, take the time to search for and ‘follow’ relevant Twitterers. You never know, they might need what you’re offering.
6. Task Manager
Sometimes even the best-built task managers can be a real pain to keep updated. You might be a silly sod and forget your login details if you’re away from your own computer, or might not know how to update your chosen task manager from your phone. Either way, plenty of task managers such as Rememberthemilk now support Twitter integration. Simply send a direct message to the task managers’ Twitter account (e.g. ‘d rtm pick up the milk’ to add to your Rememberthemilk account), and you’ll have the task saved for later.
7. Commentating
Here in Ireland recent talk has been of Budget 2009, which we’re all hoping might go some way to sort out our economic woes. Ireland’s national broadcaster RTE set up a Twitter account which provided coverage of the Budget speech live (http://twitter.com/RTEBudget2009), and well known Irish economist David McWilliams has been following up on developments from China via his Twitter account (http://twitter.com/davidmcw). If you’re looking for a different sort of commentary – sports – the likes of the BBC have Twitter accounts to remind you of what’s on (http://twitter.com/bbcsport).
8. Politics
Politicians are increasingly using social media to communicate with their voters, and to drive up support for certain policies. One of the most famous political Twitterers is of course Barack Obama (http://twitter.com/BarackObama) who used Twitter to organise events around America during his Presidential campaign. He’s now US President. No doubt his use of social media and Twitter in particular helped gain him precious votes.
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