I didn’t really socialise much with people when I wasn’t actually with them face to face before I started twittering, but now I wouldn’t be without the online community I’m in. I used to use forums to post questions then check back each day to see if anyone had been interested enough to reply. Unfortunately it was rather time consuming and often I didn’t get what I was looking for or maybe it didn’t work.

Now I post a question in twitter using the keyword target followers I attracted using Tweet Later a free twitter tool which helps you manage multiple accounts for business purposes. Often I get a reply back within minutes and a link to a help page someone found and though I might be interested in. Not only on twitter itself I also get comments and help in Facebook and Myspace too.

Anyway back to the twitter wiki what is Twitter all about then, lets start with a little background;

Twitter was founded in March 2006 by Evan Williams, Jack Dorsey, and Biz Stone, he concept I believe primarily emanating from Dorsey’s idea of quick update on what you are doing to all your friends at once. In 2006 Williams and Biz Stone co-founded Obvious Corp along with other former Odeo employees. Twitter was created as a separate company in April 2007 by Obvious Corp. Jack Dorsey was chief executive officer of Twitter until October 2008 when Williams became CEO and Dorsey shifted to the position of chairman of the board.

Today twitter provides the same basic service as every social networking site and virtual community on line today, to connect users, and to provide a hub or common meeting place for its members to communicate on a regular basis. So why not just continue to use the same social sites and forums you have always frequented, there is no reason not to, you don’t have to switch to twitter just use it in any way that suits your particular needs.

Twitter is there to give you and your friends a means to share information and  keep up with what you’re doing in real time now. There are thousands of people online all the time so won’t your messages get lost in all the marketing hype and sales messages, not really since your friends and colleagues can subscribe to receive your updates and you theirs so you can each keep up to date with what’s going on in your daily minute by minute life.

Over the last few years, Twitter has become popular globally, it is the fastest growing free micro-blogging software that facilitates keeping in touch with your social network through quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing now, what are you thinking about what do you need to know in 140 characters or less? 

To "Tweet" is the term used to describe the status updates you post on twitter within the 140 maximum character limit. For individuals tweeting is simple just text or log in and type your updates whenever you fancy saying something out loud to the world, but to be effective in the business situation, it has to be done systematically, at a time when your customers are most likely to read what you have written even if that might be at 2am your time when they are just waking up.

For the most business professionals unfortunately, this level of commitment can be very impractical because of the time required. Fortunately, there are tools which can be used to automate the process allowing you to post your updates 24 hours a day even when you are asleep.

Personally I find a service called Tweet Later to be the best one which suits me, they recently rebranded as Social Oomph but I still prefer the original name. Its really easy to use, the interface is quite intuitive in its functionality and there is an excellent manual in the help area too. You can try it for free with a seven day trial of the full functionality of the paid version, then it reverts to the simple version more suited in my opinion to the individual user rather than corporate marketing executive or business owner. Click on the Twitter logo and have a look for your self, try it for free today and get yourself new business contacts every day who are interested in working with you.

Thats it for now for the twitter wiki, if you have any comments questions or more to add please leave me a comment I’d love to hear your opinions on the Twitter Revolution. I’ll explain more about the social oomph in another post soon.

Paul Palmer

Personally of the sites I have found online I prefer the latter, its more of a social networking system which is what a blog should really be about. On the other hand, fsi blog, providing a means of sharing giving us all freedom with our social information, there’s a concept I simply adore.

Freedom of speech is such a widely known concept, an issue many struggle with and govermnets attempt to control, enter the fsi blog. Can anyone really hope to control us now it is so easy to share, freedom of social informration is here, its now and I honestly believe it’s here to stay.

Enter the digital world and you too can easily create your own fsi blog utilising any manner of free platforms or hosting your own the choices are now limit less so much so that a single post just is not enough to share them all.

Take a look at wordpress first if you are looking to get started, its the most widely utilised platform and they will host it for you too so you don’t even have to. The days of oppression are over for many of us.

Paul Palmer

Long live the fsi blog

If you are in business on line and you are not on twitter you should put micro blogging twitter on your list of thngs to do in the high priority category. Its really easy, just 140 characters per post so you don’t have to spend hours thinking about what to say, although if you repeat the same thing again and again you won’t make any close friends.

Twitter is growing, the release of the API key meant companies jumped in a developed applications to get in on the micro blogging twitter bandwagon. Twitter can be accessed easily on home computers,  mobile phones, ipods, laptops and a whole host of mobile devices which is expanding evbery day. Twitter has its own search function and has become a huge platform for sharing and researching live information.

Many large businesses and celebrities have hundreds of thousands of followers on Twitter and use it to their advantage by micro blogging on twitter. They even run competitions and test the level of interest in new products with their micro blogging twitter strategy. Examples include IBM, Starbucks, Brittany Spears Oprah and many more besides.

Twitter is already a place where companies build brands, carry out market research, contact new prospective customers, attract e-commerce customers and market communities for their users. Even traditional retail businesses are being transformed by Twitter keeping their local customers informed.

Twitter users can make contact with other local users by adding approapriate keywords to their profiles and of course in their posts. Meetings are even arranged by twitter users turning virtual aquaintences into real friends.

Care must of course be taken in setting up a business campaign on Twitter direct communication with customers can be a good thing if they like what you are saying. However the community is a close one and saying the wrong thing is just as likely to turn them all against you, its very easy to unfollow someone. There are also numerous twitter tools available to manage your account and recommend to your colleagues to unfollwo someone you feel is "spamming" for example by only posting commercial links all the time.

Paul Palmer

Twitter addict

, social marketer, dancer and all round fun guy

What makes a blog stick in your mind, I did really mean the cutest blog on block but maybe the analogy isn’t really that clear. By cute I really mean attractive, making people want to come back to see more of what you are writing about. Obviously a blog is somewhere that you post short, interesting regular updates rather than long articles which you should put in an article directory. Finally the block well I do feel this is probably the most obvious, by block I mean niche.

The cutest blog on block on your block is therefore the one which ranks highest, gets the most natural traffic and what is most important the highest number of repeat visitors as well in your niche. Have you ever considered the traffic and why its all new from various sources, or maybe you have the opposite issue you only get repeat business. It’s the nature of the blog.

Creating a successful blog is not simply about putting the most content up online, its about getting the traffic there, (the people) as well and providing a quality service which makes people want to come back. If you have a hundred subscribers interested in your product which is maybe consumable or needs buying regularly you can be better off than 500 one off purchases.

You have to think about your tribe, about the kind of people who might be interested in your blog and want to read it, after all if no one is intersted in reading what you have written you might as well not have bothered in the first place.

Paul Palmer

Think about your blog is it the cutest blog on block, the top resource in your niche?