How do you use Twitter for business?
Twitter is a relatively new Internet service, having been launched in 2007. Although it’s deceptively simple, it has become so popular that several similar services are popping up to get a piece of the pie. I admit that at first glance, I didn’t quite get what the buzz was all about. It was only after making an effort to follow people and join conversations that I realized the power of the service. Right now, it seems like we’ve bare scratched the surface.
If you’ve been following the Iran protests, you might be aware of the media crackdown and Internet filtering that their government has been doing. Twitter has been instrumental in disseminating information from inside Iran to the outside world because its architecture makes it difficult to filter out. Wordwide, “tweeple” have been trying to help the protesters thru this service. Chris Anderson interviewed NYU Professor Clay Shirky about Twitter on TED.com, and I’ll quote part of it here:
Do you get a sense that it’s almost as if the world is figuring out live how to use Twitter in these circumstances? Some dissidents were using named accounts for a while, and there’s been a raging debate in the community about how best to help them.
Yes, there’s an enormous reckoning to be had about what works and what doesn’t. There have been disagreements over whether it was dangerous to use hashtags like #Iranelection, and there was a period in which people were openly tweeting the IP addresses of web proxies for people to switch to, not realizing that the authorities would soon shut these down. It’s incredibly messy, and the definitive rules of the game have yet to be written. So yes, we’re seeing the medium invent itself in real time.
This is certainly an eye-opener, not just about citizen journalism, but about how Twitter can be used by swarms of people for different ends. In business, a lot has been said on how to use social media to gain more customers or win their loyalty, but it seems like there are more possibilities left unexplored.
Do you use Twitter for your business dealings? How do you harness it differently, and what features do you think it should add to be more responsive to your needs as an entrepreneur?
Share your thoughts!!!