A Brief Overview of Twitter, and Why you Need it

I get quite a few questions regarding Twitter. I’m often asked what is it, and why anyone would want to bother using it. If you have these same questions, hopefully this will help answer those questions.

Companies today are embracing social media as a way to directly reach their customers and potential customers. (If you have some of the same questions about social media as you do about Twitter, you may want to read A Brief Overview of Online Marketing and Social Media, and Why You Need Them.) Consumers embrace social media as a way to share their experiences with their friends. Together, social media attempts to create the perfect marriage of consumers and companies; consumers keep close contact with the companies they prefer, while companies maintain close relationships with their customers.

Twitter is just one form of social media. Along with Facebook, LinkedIn and various blog platforms, there are literally hundreds of social media tools to help you spread word about your products and services.

Twitter was launched in 2006. Personally, when I first used Twitter, it seemed nothing much more to me then a great tool for stalkers and those who like to be stalked. I found a few celebrity accounts who I thought I might be interested in keep up to date with. Yet, the only thing I learned about them is what they were having for lunch and what film they were working on but couldn’t tell anyone about it. That was just about the only thing I heard people talk about in news media as well. I “used” it for about a week and gave it up.

Only a few weeks before writing this article, I decided to give it another try. Surprisingly to me, I discovered the true value of Twitter and why so many use it. Twitter allows you to not only locate your market, but for those that use it well, the messages that you spread can spawn to literally millions of people. Yes, there are still plenty of people “tweeting” nonsense and rather worthless information. But the gem of Twitter is that you can rapidly sort the jewels from the mire. You can decide who’s following your updates, along with who you yourself wish to keep updated with. And unlike Facebook, where you rarely receive reciprocation, you can limit who you follow to only those that you think will follow you back; those who have a high likelihood of being interested in what you have to say in return. You can also continually monitor those who follow you, adding those that spread your word the furthest to a list of your creating, while “unFollowing” those that give you little love in return.

Stay tuned for more information regarding Twitter and other social media. I’ll be sharing more detailed information on the best way to get the most out of Twitter, along with what in the world Klout is.  Can’t wait for the next update? You can also send me an email, or follow me via Twitter, Facebook, or Google+.

Thanks for reading!

I know you have your own opinions regarding the importance of Twitter. Have you found Twitter to be worthwhile, worthless, or still a frontier unknown?