Twitter: A Practical Business Application or A Waste of Time?

Twitter is a very unique system that combines micro blogging with social networking. What makes it unique is that it focuses solely on status updates or “tweets.” The best way to describe a tweet is to say that it lets everyone know what you’re doing.

When you post a new tweet it is instantly displayed on your profile page and becomes visible to all visitors and anyone who is following you. Followers are people who are interested in knowing what it is that you’re doing or seeing whatever you feel is worthy enough to be a tweet. Twitter is considered a micro blogging utility because you can post information about your life and business. Twitter offers the ability to post something like, “Working on a new post for RunningOnlineBusiness!” and then after I finish it I can tweet, “Just finished a new post on RunningOnlineBusiness – go check it out!” and then in my downtime I can tweet “Relaxing. Eating dinner shortly.” – really the possibilities are endless. I, however, am a very outspoken critic of Twitter…

I don’t believe it should have as much popularity as it does and I certainly don’t believe it brings anything new to the table in the way of social networking. In my opinion, Twitter is popular for being popular. (That’s the first new term I’ve coined in this blog – spread it around, make me famous for saying it.) What do I mean by popular for being popular? Well, simple. The only reason that I use Twitter, for example, is because of the fact that so many people are using it. In the first few days after making an account, I gained many loyal followers who now frequent this blog. Am I using Twitter for its vast myriad of unique and fascinating features? No, because they don’t exist. Many people use this application solely because of the fact that due to its popularity, you can easily reach new people. Therefore, it’s gaining popularity due only to the fact that it’s popular. Make sense? Don’t ask me what made it popular to begin with because I’m not a wizard and I cannot tell you.

I don’t know about you, but interesting events happen to me on a regular basis and I often have an overwhelming urge to share these experiences with the world. (Can you detect the sarcasm?) Since I don’t always have a computer with me or nearby, I have difficulty sharing these aforementioned experiences. So what do I do? Simple! I utilize the mobile tweeting feature on Twitter. Now I can use my phone to alert people to the fact that I’m doing things they should not really have any concern with. I mean, do you really care if I’m drinking coffee and reading the newspaper? If you do, that’s fine. Feel free to follow me, then. Don’t get your hopes up, though, I’m not that exciting. (Or am I? I could be trying to throw you off so that only my true loyal fans will see what I’m doing. Really though, follow me.)

In all seriousness folks, Twitter can be a valuable resource to anyone doing business online, whether it be blogging or internet marketing or just about anything else. You can give your readers and clients insight into your personal life and allow them to see who is behind the keyboard. You can also update them to new posts, features and changes on your site. If you’re selling anything, you can alert them to new deals, offers, sales and even products. In fact, you could offer a special discount to your twitter followers. (Go forth my minions and buy my products!)

So allow me to summarize by saying that Twitter doesn’t have much value to the regular person (unless they’re interested in knowing what other regular people are doing throughout the day – and don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with that) but it can be an extremely powerful marketing tool to the online businessperson. If you’re not currently employing the services of Twitter, check it out and give it a try. It’s totally free and very easy to use. On the plus side, you can become a follower of this blog.

Do you use Twitter? Express your thoughts on it by leaving a comment below!