Do you use Twitter? This is the social networking tool that allows users to tell multiple followers exactly what they are doing at any given moment.
Frankly I see little business use for this tool, but apparently there are some. There are also some good reasons NOT to use this tool. A great friend of mine who is also an attorney, once told me that anything you write down in email or any form of written communication can be used as admissible evidence in a court of law. I can only think that Twitter now puts that rule on steroids. All electronic communications are stored somewhere for perpetuity.
Check the link out here on what happened to an Ad agency executive who shared his personal opinions on twitter prior to a meeting with FedEx. Good on the FedEx folks for their reaction to this event.
Eric
Add Freightdawg.com to your social bookmarks!
I suppose you could have called us skeptics at first but we have been using Twitter very effectively as part of our outreach campaign. It helps us target individuals who we can have an ongoing conversation with, rather than just a singular contact. It's not only useful for marketing. You really do learn so much if you're careful who you follow. It's not about the numbers of followers, it's the quality of the followers.
Using Twitter as part of our most recent campaign won us a commendation in our regions most prestigious awards. It is worth the effort
http://www.k3scs.com/the-factory/
Posted by: Simon Wharton | June 28, 2009 at 07:03 PM
Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin are all great places for startups to advertise and interact with their customers. I was skeptical of its usage but after launching a sports site in my spare time, it has helped draw traffic and users. (I work in Logistics as my day job)
These social networks also allow instant feedback to the companies using them. During the development of the site, I used Twitter and Facebook to solicit feedback from users on what they wanted to see. This instant feedback would have required focus groups, market research firms and various other polling to get that info.
A couple things I would suggest for people looking to use these tools is to not only look at it as a way to advertise but to also contribute. Web saavy users are pretty good at figuring out they are being sold to. By giving back to the community, you will receive a better return.
Please don't spam ads....nothing turns a follower/friend/fan off quicker then tons of spam....
Hope that helps! (@sporticts if you sign up)
Posted by: Josh | June 03, 2009 at 03:07 PM
It's actually quite useful if you know what you're doing...
for example, I just shared one of your posts with about 1350 people by sending a link to my followers.
So twitter is helping you and you don't even use it... ;)
Posted by: David Wescott | June 01, 2009 at 02:27 PM
twitter is great except it is not getting filled with companies and people trying to post up their own agenda. But there is heaps of logistics ones out there, try for example: http://twitter.com/logisticsnews i like this one as they get news stories independantly, they are not just promoting their own agendas...
Posted by: matt | May 14, 2009 at 06:44 AM
We're starting to see the power of it. I think anytime you see something with so much coverage, particularly that's towards promoting your business, potentially, it's worth a look.
http://twitter.com/logjobs
We're using it now to primarily promote some referral commission-eligible jobs.
Posted by: John Matthews | May 12, 2009 at 10:48 PM
Disney Entrepreneur Center, small businesses connect on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn
Sara K. Clarke | Sentinel Staff Writer
March 23, 2009
What are you doing? If you're a small business, you might be getting into social media on the Internet — things such as Twitter.
Small-business groups and service providers are popping up on sites including Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, which allow people to connect with one another online.
The Disney Entrepreneur Center, a local resource for small-business owners, has its own "fan page" on Facebook, as well as a profile on LinkedIn. You can also find it as @DisneyEC on Twitter.com, a site where people can post snippets of what is going on in their lives.
Center director Jerry Ross said the traffic has been "phenomenal," and the center's new social-media efforts are helping to get the word out about the center's services for small-business owners.
On a more national scale, the U.S. Small Business Administration has launched a new Web initiative called Business.gov Community, which aims to unite small-business owners, industry experts and government agencies online.
The Web site, which uses Web 2.0 technologies, has an area where business owners can post questions and a place where they can provide input on how government can better serve small businesses. The SBA said it hopes to expand the community during the next few months. The site is at http://community.business.gov.
Do you know of other online resources for small businesses? Share them with me @SKClarke on Twitter.
Posted by: Gerard Hempstead | March 25, 2009 at 10:26 AM
Hi Eric,
Hope all is well.
I started using Twitter within the past month and am still evaluating its benefits just as I did with blogging in the beginning.
My initial impression is that it is great for those have their own business, are prolific writers, who rely on self-promotion for their careers, and/or those who simply love to share information.
Now, I am beginning to realize another potential benefit of being able to interact with a specific group of people with similar interests, and engaging in info/idea sharing around topics of interest.
I think with any medium, you have to watch what you say and write. Twitter is no different. There are a lot of people who's main goal is to amass followers without really knowing who they are. I quickly recognized this is not the way I want to use Twitter if for professional purposes.
I think it is just another medium that will evolve in terms of benefits depending on where our lives are at.
Cheers,
Shawn
Posted by: Shawn 白翔雲 백상운 | March 25, 2009 at 05:06 AM
You're obviously only in stage 1 of the five stages of Twitter acceptance. http://rohitbhargava.typepad.com/weblog/2008/12/the-5-stages-of.html. Resistance is futile.
Seriously though, I was a skeptic at first, but now I get some use out of it such as interesting links being pushed to me rather than me having to go find them and keeping up with the local tech scene. If you only follow people that tweet about what they had for breakfast or the cute thing their cat did today, you won't get much out of it (although if you're selling breakfast food or pet accessories, you might learn something by aggregating thousands of those kinds of tweets). Someone explained it as each tweet is a single pixel in a giant hi-res picture that actually contains a lot of information about what's going on in the world.
On a logistics note check out what Jeff Ashcroft is doing with it: http://www.supplychainnetwork.com/?p=474
Disclaimer: I wrote http://tweepdiff.com so it's in my interest to see Twitter grow.
Brian aka @bdeter
Posted by: Brian Deterling | March 25, 2009 at 02:31 AM