Finally, what is Twitter?

Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that enables

its users to send and read real time messages. These messages, also known

as tweets, are text-based posts of up to 140 characters that can be written

by a user in his profile page, above the concept of “What are you doing now”.

Twitter´s growth

Twitter is ranked as one of the Top 20 most popular websites worldwide (15th

position) by Alexa´s web traffic analysis. Everyday it gains new adepts

everyday, showing an exponential growth.

The Twitter Language

Following - When you follow someone

Follower - People that follow you and get the messages you post

Tweet – The message people write on Twitter with a maximum length of 140

@username - it lets you exchange public messages with individual Users,

mostly by doing a reply

DM or direct message - Twitter’s private messaging channel

RT or retweet - To help share cool ideas via Twitter and to give a shout-out

to people you respect, you can repost their messages and give them credit

Hashtag (#) - is just the # symbol followed by a term describing or naming

the topic—that you add to a post in order to categorize or tag your message

Shortened URLs - With just 140 characters at your disposal, Twitter doesn’t

give you much room to include URL links so sometimes they automatically

shorten the URL .

Corporate use in Twitter

Twitter is a communication platform and a powerful tool that helps businesses stay connected to their customers. It allows companies to quickly share information about its products/services, news and promotions.

A good thing about Twitter is that it gives the company an opportunity to have friendly and public conversations with their customers. Besides, several communication goals can be achieved simultaneously, such as: Gain brand awareness Build valuable relationships with clients Get on the radar of potential new customers or partnersGather real-time market intelligence and feedback Provide more responsive and immediate customer service

.

Who is already on Twitter

A lot of important companies and brands are embracing social

media and especially Twitter, the most popular among the Fortune

100 companies.

54 percent of the Fortune 100 have a Twitter presence Of the Fortune 100 companies on Twitter, 94% use it for

news/announcements, 67% for customers service, and 57 % for deals and promotions.

The average Fortune 100 Twitter account has 5,234 followers. The median is 674 followers.

* Source: PR firm Burson-Marsteller

Twitter Advantages

Save money through enhanced customer service

Increase sales by promoting new products and services

Find new prospects, clients and expand your network

Better manage your online corporate reputation

Optimize your website or blog and get more traffic

Build referrals and optimize your SEO strategy

Gain or improve brand awareness

.

What you can tweet about

New products, services and features

Special offers, promotions, coupons, sales

Events and awards

Articles, publications, prizes, appearances

Business successes

Milestones

Polls, request for feedbacks and suggestions

.

Finding & attracting followers

Add your company to the WeFollow directory: http://wefollow.com/ so others can find it

Add your Twitter feed to your website and promote it Divulgate your Twitter account in other social communities Use some of the free tools and applications Start following people (however, be aware of who you´re

following)

Next

Finding & attracting followers

Some important tips to take in consideration:

Make sure you have a photo (or logo) as your image Complete your bio – it is searchable Understand the dynamics of Twitter – don’t sell, share Engage with your followers Don’t be afraid to disagree or comment Develop a tweeting strategy Keep message consistent and try to be interesting and not

boring Use other media – photos or video Monitor what people are saying about you

Some Tools &Applications

http://twitterfeed.com

feeds an RSS feed into your Twitter stream. This is how you can post your blog to Twitter automatically

www.twitpic.com

allows you to share photographs easily on Twitter

www.twollo.com

automatically find you people to follow based on keywords

www.twellow.com

Twitter´s yellow page

informs you when anyone is talking about you on Twitterwww.tweletbeep.com