24

Jul

What’s a ‘Tweet’ and Is It Good for Business?

Posted by: Carolyn Young

After reading numerous articles exclaiming what a phenomenon the social network Twitter is, I decided to finally see what all the commotion was about. Twitter immediately demonstrated its popularity when I tried to visit their homepage and received the error “Twitter is over capacity. Too many tweets! Please wait a moment and try again.”The heart of Twitter is what is known as a “tweet,” a micro-blog post (maximum of 140 characters) that provides a status update of the user. Many of these tweets are sent via Instant Message or SMS text, so I was curious to see how sending these short messages could translate to increasing website traffic.

Once you have determined if your business would benefit from the gigantic Twitter network (and really, who doesn’t want more exposure?), the site can be used as a valuable branding tool. Entering keywords on your profile that relate to your business will attract members searching for those particular subjects or terms. The tweets provide the opportunity to post links to your blog or website while writing extremely brief thoughts about your experiences and expertise within your specific industry.

When your profile has been filled with content, people will begin to view and “follow” your tweets so they can receive updates as you add more posts. This platform creates the potential to increase traffic to your site with minimal effort from you. One short sentence with a link could attract new visitors to your site, and also help build relationships with other professionals in your industry.

Even though the site might take a little getting used to initially, the marketing value of Twitter should not be underestimated. The millions of users on Twitter are looking for information updates, why shouldn’t your website be one of them?