In case you are living under a rock….
Twitter is just another one of those social platforms that you didn’t want to grow attached to but knew you would. It has become unavoidable at this point. If you don’t tweet, I bet at least five of your Facebook friends have synched up their Tweets to their status update. It’s gotten to the point where even my friends who aren’t within the internet marketing industry (all 5 of them) have a Twitter account, whether they know how to use it or not doesn’t really matter. I doubt they will sign up for Pownce and the whole point of any of these wastes of time are for them to exist for the masses.
I have noticed that it all breaks down to 3 different types of Twitter users:
1.There is the Twitter user that tweets all of the time. This is the person who just tweets nonsense once an hour. You read their tweets but might form an opinion on them just based off of the value of their update. Maybe they are humorous and you appreciate the smile it gives you or maybe its just random crap that doesn’t even flow and becomes annoying. Sometimes these people also converse with each other too much, they should be instant messaging each other. If you know these people you might want or not want to follow them.
2.Then there is the marketer twitter user. This twitter account might be owned by a blog, a news source, or a blogger. The updates might be fed by a bot and are on a schedule. The only purpose of these tweets are to inform you when they add new content to their site. This has become really useful because I don’t always have a chance to read my reader and I am updated about blogs I read through a second source.
3.Finally there is the tweeter that I favor the most which is a great combination of the two. This person tweets things that come to mind, links to things that they like, links to things they are marketing (whether it be a personal brand or a client) tastefully. I’d like to think I am this kind of tweeter. Donna, also does a great job of this.
There are still many people who are well recognized in the industry who don’t like Twitter and choose not to use it ….like Lisa. In my opinion it is not as necessary to use Twitter as it is to use Facebook. You can simply use Twitter scanners like Terraminds (which has been on the fritz lately) or Tweetscan for market research. I have had huge success from using these tools.
Just like any other social media trend, micro-blogging has to be used on a schedule. Some tweeters update once and hour or more and this can be really annoying if you are running a Twitter api like I do. It can be super distracting if your api uses sounds and your computer just tweets all day, but of course you can control this. However I like it because it makes me feel like I am working in a park somewhere with birds……
Keeping tweets to a regular 5 to 10 time basis keeps your followers familiar with you and the types of updates you are doing. Likewise you don’t want to be updating with links at heavy work flow hours because chances are nobody will click them.
Another thing to keep in mind is tweeting during or at conferences. This is how Twitter became popular. During conferences Twitter goes crazy with updates and can be really distracting if you are not attending but helpful if you are looking for links with info about the conference. Because of SWSW and SES NY. I have turned my Twitter sounds off because it is just too annoying.
Nevertheless you can chose to be the Twitter user you want to be for whatever purpose you are doing it. But as with any social content platform; know your audience, be present, and be consistent.
If you are new to Twitter, there is a special language spoke, please refer to the Twitter Glossary beforehand.
PS: Color wars are happening now at Twitter. Here is a great video that explains what this is…