Part Three: Don't Be Afraid Of...Embracing Your Twitizenship
Since it's creation in 2006, Twitter has taken the world by storm.
Originally, I was totally against Twitter. I didn't see the point, thinking it was egotistical and irrelevant to post things like "I just brushed my teeth."
But over the past year I have been converted into an avid
tweeter for work purposes. Why? Because Twitter has become a feasible communication method for businesses large and small.
Many people choose only to listen in on organizations posting news and updates. Others use Twitter only to keep up-to-date on research in their chosen field. To these people, Twitter is an incredibly useful and professional tool. You don't have to share any more information than you're comfortable with, nor do you have to "follow" people you do not know.
I recently came across an old blog posting called
Twitter 102 - Good Twitizenship and it reminded me of what we here at 4MAT tell our clients to do when embracing social media:
offer value to your audience! If there's no value to what you're tweeting, then you might as well be sharing your tooth-brushing activity with the world.
Social media has crashed on top of us like a tidal wave, and the aforementioned philosophy can easily be scattered and confused during our attempts to get on top of it all.
The Twitizenship blog post that I found identifies ways to be a good business tweeter (see below for convenient table).
If you as an individual, are trying to build relationships online, would you want to be friends with the person who is self-interested?
No.
Same rule applies for business. A company that goes online and blows its own trumpet will push away it's audience. Listing your products' features will bore your Twitter audience - if they want to know your products and services, they will visit your corporate website.
So when you are embracing your Twitizenship, try to be an attractive participant in the tweeting community by offering value with your 140 characters! If you don't tweet for the good reasons, then it's likely you will damage your brand's online reputation and credibility, lose your audience, and risk losing business.
Go forth and tweet, and be a good Twitizen!
