With an estimated 250 million monthly visitors Twitter is the second most popular social network (behind Facebook, of course). But in a world that has come to terms with social networks, many people still don’t get Twitter. It’s not a normal social network like Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace and Google+, the other top 5 networks. These differences make some people reluctant to try it, but they are also reasons that it can work better for you than the others.
So what is it?
Twitter allows you to post short messages – updates known as Tweets – to your Twitter page. Anyone can go to your Twitter page and see your Tweets. However, if they decide to Follow you, your Tweets are shown automatically when they view Twitter. Equally, you can Follow people who interest you and keep updated with their news quickly and easily.
Why is it Useful to Me?
Like any social network, Twitter can be invaluable in keeping in touch with your customers but here are some reasons you should consider Twitter specifically:
It’s Quick to Tweet
A Tweet is limited to 140 characters. This means it’s quick to Tweet, but its not the limitation you might think; you can include links to web pages, photos and even video in the Tweet to provide more detail. Need to share some information with your customers quickly? Twitter is the best way.
It’s Quick to Read Tweets
Are you too busy to read all the blogs you’d like? Have no time to comb your RSS feeds for interesting information? Because Tweets are short and presented in an easily readable format, you can quickly skim through new Tweets and see what’s going on. Links in interesting Tweets can be clicked, others passed over. Such a swift way of digesting news is priceless with so much out there on the web.
This also means you don’t need to Tweet to benefit from using Twitter. Just Follow people and businesses that sound interesting and get your daily dose of information. Twitter is also very good at suggesting Tweeters you might like; once you get started it will suggest useful people to follow you might not have been aware of.
Twitter is Mobile
Because of the simple nature of the messages, you can Tweet as easily from your smartphone as from your desktop. you can also keep up with the latest news and information on the move.
In an upcoming post I’ll discuss how easy it is to sign up for Twitter and how to use it best for your business.
