Tweeting – not just for birds!
December 8, 2009 Sarah's Sizzlers!
Facebook paved the way for social networking sites, the status updates, who’s ‘tagged’ you on a photo and keeping in touch with old and new friends. However now Twitter has come onto the social networking scene Facebook may start to shudder in their cyber space boots!
Twitter is proving to be the latest craze, those who are unaware of its uses may need to be enlightened on what they might be missing out on, as I only discovered it recently and I am slowly but surely getting into it, what a surprise!
Twitter is more of a blogging tool, you can follow people and they can be your followers too. It’s your choice who you follow as they might follow you but it’s optional if you want to follow them in return. (You get it now?)
Your tweets can have up to 140 characters or less which is posted for your follows to read, they can reply to what you have said by clicking on the @reply button and writing a comment.
For example I ‘tweeted’, Sarah Mathers ‘Watched New Moon last night it was amazing!’ to which my friend replied, ‘Robert Pattinson in the film is HOT!’
In your tweets you can write about anything and anyone, you can also message people privately, this is a Direct Message (DM). You can ReTweet as many times you want, ( even if it is annoying for the other people receiving them on the hour every hour!)
Here is a video of PR professional Debbie Friez providing Twitter tips, she metions she uses Twitter in many different ways, I’m a media junkie and sometimes I don’t always find out news from the news organsations - I find it out from my friends on Twitter’ – This shows us how someone working within the PR industry benfits from using the blogging website.
But let’s remember why we are talking about Twitter in relation to PR – This is becoming popular in the workplace, blogging in general is becoming a great way of sharing knowledge. In the reading How Blogs and Social Media are Changing Public Relations and the way it is practised , Wright and Hanson (2008) they explain the change in public relations from new media such as blogging, ‘Results indicates blogs and social media have enhanced what happens in public relations and that social media and traditional mainstream media compliment each other’.
‘Findings suggest social media complement traditional news media, and that blogs and social media influence coverage in traditional news media’.
Fredrik Wacka (2005) also claims there are several reasons why employees have started blogging:
- Becoming an expert: Positioning the employee as a thought leader
- Testing ideas: The conversational and informal nature of blogs, and the ability to encourage audience feedback, makes blogging a good way to toss out ideas to see if they generate interest
- Polarizing Relationships: Employees can use blogs to personalize relationships with other employees and member of other strategic publics (customers, stockholders etc).
The above reasons he gives is a great example for my favourite online shop ASOS.com, they have been greatly successful from having their online shop and have started using Twitter to promote their latest clothes and special offers they have going on to engage more public interest in their company.And also it is free, one the biggest benefits using Twitter.
I am one of their followers on Twitter and every time I go on, they bribe me (honest) into buying something with their great deals, free postage offers and just absolutely brilliant outfits on there, I should really un tweet them, my bank account would be a lot more healthier!
This is there Twitter Page ( be warned if you are a shopaholic like moi)
They have tweeted such things as ‘Shop sexy! Free next day delivery on party dresses for Xmas! Just for you between 12-2pm today only. Use SEXYDRESS at checkout’ and Don’t forget: order from asos.com today for your chance to win a Limited Edition motorbike with Wrangler! http://bit.ly/asosadvent ‘
How can I not resist temptation?!
This is good for people who are followers like me, as this is exclusive information about the website to which if we were not friend with them and only went on the website, we would not know about these special offers! Brilliant!
So in more ways than one Twitter is creating a phenomenon with social lives as well as the work place, both proving successful and beneficial all thanks to Twitter, will you be following the latest craze? I think so!
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1. panpanspalace&hellip | December 14, 2009 at 8:01 pm
I think that you mentioning on Twitter you can choose to follow someone and it is then in turn the individuals choice whether or not they in turn want to follow you a very important factor.
On most social networking sites you add someone as a friend, if your request is accepted you will then start receiving updates back and forth from each other.
Twitter is unique in the sense it allows you to be followed but in turn you do not need to follow that individual back. In this sense Twitter allows individuals to follow people they are interested in but this interest may not be reciprocated. This in turn gives the users a bigger room for the information they receive.