Business and Blogging

Twitter and Business: The Conclusion

by Laura Spencer on May 3rd, 2008

A few weeks ago I began examining whether or not the micro blogging tool, Twitter, could be useful as for businesses.

I first posted about the possiblities of Twitter as a Business tool with this post and made further observations here.

After a month of Twittering I’ve finally come to my conclusion (and the conclusion of the series).

Should your business use Twitter?

The answer is a definitive . . . maybe.

Twitter has definitely taken off in some market segments. Technologists (such as members of the software development community, webworkers, and othr freelancers), in particular, seem to have embraced Twitter. This news story from Charles Cooper at CNET news indicates that even the CEO of Sun Microsystems, Jonathon Schwartz, uses Twitter.

In Business Week, Sarah Lacy has called Twitter “as socially transformative as blogging” and in many ways, she’s right.

Business Advantages of Twitter

Twitter has some distinct business advantages:

• Mobile - you can read Tweets (Twitter posts) on your mobile phone or other mobile device. Best of all, when you view a Tweet you’re not missing anything. Twitter doesn’t support graphics or other add-ins.
• Interactive - The conversational format encourages participation. Twitter is great for collaborative projects. I’ve seen many tweets used for posting questions or taking informal polls.
• Social - Twitter gives followers and those being followed a chance to interact. In business who you know is often as important as what you know. Twitter can help with that.
• Informal - Conversations on Twitter tend to be casual and intimate. People routinely tweet both about what they are having for breakfast and what project they are working on.
• Immediacy - Twitter’s real-time messaging means someone is almost always on Twitter, ready and willing to respond to any and all Tweets.

More resources on the business advantages of Twitter:

• From Adam Lyttle at Adamant Solutions, Twitter for Business: The Definitive Guide
• From Paull Young at Young PR, Examples of Twitter Providing Business Benefit
• From Tara Hunt at horsepigcow, Tweeting for Companies 101

Business Disadvantages of Twitter

Should business twittering replace business blogging?

I would say “no.” If your business has to make a choice between blogging and twittering, then I’d still recommend choosing blogging over Twitter.

There are some definite disadvantages to Twitter as compared to blogging:

• Post Length - Your posts on Twitter are limited to 140 characters. The brevity makes it difficult to convey complex ideas.
• Inserts - There’s currently no way to insert images such as photos or graphics directly into your tweets. This also means no video or audio either.
• Time - Maintaining relationships on Twitter takes a lot of time. To reap Twitter’s benefits, you must participate (often).
• Search - Tweets typically do not rank high in the search engines. There is a Tweet Scan tool available to search Twitter, but it has a fairly basic search function.

I didn’t actually find a lot of resources on Twitter drawbacks.

I think that the decision to use Twitter needs to be made individually by each business after they have weighed the pros and cons.

(Disclosure: I tweet here.)

Image Source: Laura Spencer of WritingThoughts

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POSTED IN: Blogging, Corporate