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.

It’s a sad, sad day.  After almost three years adding photos, sending ‘luv’, and commenting on other peoples pages i’ve done the dirty on Bebo, closed off my account, and run off to Facebook for good.  Why?  Mostly because of all the spam i’ve been getting on Bebo lately, and mostly because Facebook is just better.  Despite Facebook having heaps of applications – some very annoying – it beats Bebo hands down for usability, speed, and for its supremely good privacy settings.

Bye, Bye Bebo.  We had some great times together.  To make you feel better, here’s a video of Mariah Carey in her skimpies:

The ever evolving Facebook has revealed it’s new homepage design here.   I have to say, I quite like it.  It’s more inviting, less cluttered, and fits in well with the new design of the site which some users love, and some users really, really, really hate.  There is an excellent emphasis on new user registrations, and Facebook manage to sum up the purpose of the site perfectly – ‘Facebook helps you connect and share with the people in your life.’  A nice visual is thrown in for good measure… awwww.

If you’re in the mood for a side by side comparison here’s the new one:

…and here’s the old one:

Reading the latest issue of NMA today, there’s a little piece about Mothercare owned social network Gurgle signing a deal with MSN to provide content for MSNs Life and Style channels.  With over 250,000 unique visitors per month and 500,000 registered users, Gurgle does seem to have gained quite a lot of traction in this space and i’ve noticed quite quite a few competitors cropping up.   Here’s a few…

Mothersclick

I first stumbled across this about a year and a half ago, shortly after its launch.  Developed using the open source php content framework Drupal, the creators seem to have attracted a fair amount of users and have even branched out – adding Fathersclick and Momblognetwork to their suite of sites.  It seems to be mainly aimed at a US audience though, so looks unlikely to get much of a say in the Irish market.

CafeMom

The big bad new boy in the schoolyard, CafeMom has seen insane levels of growth since its launch in 2006.  Claiming to have over 120 million page impressions per month to 6 million visitors per month, it was ranked as the 7th fastest growing site in the world in 2007 by Compete.com.  Like a Myspace for mums, it has groups, photo sharing, and heaps of other great content to keep its users happy.

ParentsConnect

Oddly, the slogan of this site is ‘We’re not perfect, we’re parents’.  Owned by the Nickelodeon network, the bubble gum style design seems to be aimed more at kids than their parents.  It’s a bit bulky and colour heavy compared to its competitors, but i’m sure their offline media outlets will help them push traffic.

Minti

With a name more suitable for a chewing gum brand, this is one of my personal favourites.  It’s clean, has shedloads of content, and the registration process is fuss-free.  The photo sharing element of the site is very popular with proud mums, and the prominent ‘find stuff’ searchbox at the top of the site is helpful.