Friday, July 24, 2009

Twitter 101

When it comes to social networking I am an advocate of "fishing where the fish are;" meaning making use of the public social networking sites to connect with listeners. As relationships are built, then, give listeners good reason to visit and partake in proprietary station digital platforms. I believe this strategy enables radio stations to connect and build relationships with many more people in a much shorter time span.

To many, Twitter is still a bit mysterious--it's use, it's value, and it's benefits. Today I read this from post on WebNewser. As you will read Twitter has launched Twitter 101--a guide to how businesses can effectively use the service. It will be basic for some, but for others it will provide a wealth of information.

Twitter 101: Twitter for Businesses

FortuneTwitterBizStone.jpgTwitter co-founder Biz Stone announced the launch of the Twitter 101 initiative during an interview with Fortune editor at large Adam Lashinsky during the magazine's Fortune Brainstorm: Tech summit in Pasadena, Calif., Thursday.

Lashinsky asked when Twitter will implement plans to begin making money, and Stone replied, "The plan is to do that this year—to show some signs of life for a revenue approach," adding that Twitter 101 was the "first step."

On the Twitter blog, Stone wrote:

Many are seeing a wide variety of businesses using Twitter in interesting ways to create value for customers and consumers. As a result, we're often invited by businesses and organizations to talk about Twitter and how it can be used to better engage with customers. Twitter is still a small team, so it made more sense to do some research and make it widely available rather than personally visit businesses big and small.
We coordinated with business students and writers to surface some interesting findings, best practices, steps for getting started and case studies. The results demonstrate how customers are getting value out of Twitter and suggest techniques businesses can employ to enhance that value. While this work was envisioned for businesses, it's also useful for anyone using Twitter, so have a look if you like.

Twitter101Logo.jpgTwitter 101, as the name indicates, starts off with the basics, with sections on the home page entitled "So what does Twitter do for businesses?," "So how does it work?" and "So how do businesses use Twitter?." The home page also includes basic introductory sections like "A brief history of Twitter," "What's up with the name?" and "Why 140 characters?"

The secondary pages on Twitter 101 are: "Getting started," "Learn the lingo," "Best practices," "Case studies" and "Other resources."