I mentioned to some friends and collegues that I have recently joined Twitter and the general response is “I’ve heard about it, what is it?” Or, “That is the dumbest thing I have heard of. Who cares what anyone is doing throughout the day?” To some point, I agree with the second point, but by looking at it with a one sided view, as a business you can miss so many opportunities.

For those of you who don’t know what Twitter is, here’s the simple version: You can type in what you are doing throughout the day by writing on your page. You have 60 characters to let everyone know what you are doing. You follow people and you receive their updates aswell. If you are a Facebook user and have seen the ‘what are you doing now’ section, that’s basically all that Twitter is.

To look at Twitter as just a graffiti wall for your daily movements is naive and could cost you traffic to your site and missed opportunities as a small business. If you are in business, it’s a tool. Like anything, you need to learn how to use it wisely. I follow many different people for a variety of reasons. I follow leaders in different areas that I find interesting, such as John C Maxwell, who writes books on leadership and business. I follow those in marketing like Seth Godin, who is known as the foremost authority on everything marketing. And I also follow my staff to see what their interests are.

One major way to use Twitter is to use links. You may have a press release, a new product, a new staff member, etc who you want to tell the world about. Twitter only allows you to use 60 characters, but when you put a link to a page on your site where the press release or news story is held, your followers can click on the link and read the page. If you have hundreds or thousands of followers, your press release is instantly read by those people straight away!

If your link is quite long like http://www.protectmywealth.com.au/bla/bla/bla/bla then you will need to shorten it to fit in the Twitter update. You can use Tiny Urls which shorten your URL to fit in the required space. If there’s a need for something, the internet will provide!

So, if you have a press release, or need to tell the world about some awesome thing you have seen or heard with breaking news, get onto Twitter and get it happening. It’s free to use, so it cant hurt to try. It won’t work for everyone, but as more and more people (especially Gen X & Y) are living through the internet, these sort of social media sites will become more important to your business or products.

PD