Twitter, Tweets, Twits, Twittequette… huh?

If you’re the slightest bit geeky like myself, you’ve probably heard about Twitter. A few months ago when this micro blog of sorts came out, the general consensus was, what’s the point? You sign up for an account and follow people (which kind of seems like stalking them) and you have 140 characters to “tweet” about what you’re doing. The early days of Twitter resulted in a barrage of “who really cares” info like what someone’s having for breakfast, or that you forgot that your kid was staying late at school today for piano lessons. It became such a phenomenon, that YouTube videos like “Lisa Nova is a Twitter Whore” started popping up.

Eventually, people started figuring out how Twitter could be useful. Although you can still find comments on there about things that no one cares about, if you follow the right people, you can find out some pretty interesting stuff.

So, you sign up for Twitter, and what’s next? You choose the people you want to follow. Search by name to find if they’re on already, or search by keyword to find users who share your interests. Here’s a tip: check out the people who are following the people that you want to follow. The more you follow, the more users will sign up to follow you. And when they do, you get a nice little email that lets you know in a stalker-y sorta way that someone’s following you.

Then, start talking about something – in 140 characters or less. When you send a message, it’s called a “tweet”. Cute, huh? So what do you call those who Twitter? I think the best word for them is “twits”. No offense to other twits out there, as I’m a twit myself. But seriously, sign on and read some of the tweets for a while and I think you’ll soon agree that “twit” is the perfect word.

You can setup your account to send the tweets from the people that you’re following to your cell phone in a text message. You can also set it up to only receive the text from certain people who you really care about. And if you’re away from your computer, you can send an SMS (text message) to the Twitter code and your text is posted as your most recent tweet. I think this is one of the more interesting features as you can use your cell phone text messaging feature to keep up with the Twitter dialog.

So I signed on to this, with hesitation, because I felt that I had to understand it fully if I am to understand this new aspect of social marketing. I quickly found that all kinds of interesting people are twits… friends, colleagues, even presidential candidates (pun totally intended there). And there, in between what so and so had for breakfast, and what another person’s opinion of the Bengals is, were little gems of useful information.

I think the best marketing hook for Twitter is the fact that you can post links to other important sites, blogs, photos etc. And since it’s instant and brief, I hear a lot of buzz through Twitter before anyone gets a chance to write an article about it.

So, how can this apply to your industry? How can you use Twitter to help you better market your products or services? Sign up and follow some people first and see what they are tweeting about. Then, chime in when you can (make sure you have a few followers that will read what you have to say first) with useful information. Let me say that again… USEFUL information. Seriously, no one cares that you just stubbed your toe. Here’s a few tips for good “twittequette”:

1) Before you tweet, put yourself in the other person’s shoes. Would you care? Remember, unless every one of your followers is a close and personal friend, most of these people may not know you that well and they probably could care less about your love of a good candy bar… unless your tweet is just hilarious and you’re sharing a laugh with the world.

2) Tweet something useful. Link to a page with important information. Talk about something new and exciting.

3) Remember the audience that you’re tweeting to. Some people may be following you but might not be following others in your “flock”. So getting only half the conversation can be confusing, and sometimes even unintentionally offensive.

4) Keep it short. Tweets are restricted to 140 characters for a reason. Don’t rant on about something in multiple tweets. If you have something that important to say, write a blog or an article, post it to your site, and then just link to it from your tweet.

5) Avoid twitter spam. Although twitter can be a great marketing tool, there’s something to be said for moderation. Again, put yourself on the other side of your tweets… is it really that interesting, or are you just being annoying?

6) Read Twitter’s help and FAQs. You’ll learn a lot about the service and how best to use it. There are some great tips and tricks there, and other twits are there to help you out.

Twitter is working on new and exciting changes as well. Look for filters that will help you look at topic related tweets. It’s been interesting to watch this new type of social media as it evolves. Some people have separate accounts – one for business and one for personal. My opinion, though, is that can become cumbersome to constantly be logging into separate accounts. How about a feature where you can categorize your fellow twits and then send your tweets only to those twits that you choose? Selective tweeting anyone?

Just beware that this whole thing can get a little addictive. I changed my text message sound to a bird chirp so every time I get a tweet throughout the day, it has this nice little chirp. Well, it was nice until I felt like I was in the movie “The Birds”. My co-workers have now warned me that if I don’t knock it off, that there will be a twittervention.