To Twitter or not to Twitter

Over the last few days I have been experimenting with micro blogging platform Twitter. I have had an account for over a year and decided I should give it another shot. From what I can work out before I had some contacts it had little use for me, however starting to dig deeper I found a number of good features hidden away.

Good features include: -

Connections – is possibly the easiest way to make new business connections (followers often go through big companies and find fellow Twitters through their open profile)

Micro blogging – Being able to sum your subject into 140 characters, including a headline and short piece. Awesome concept if http://search.twitter.com was used properly. Also it is a good way of promoting a new story for bloggers or journalists. No yellow journalism please ;-)

Status update - Short sharp updates, can update your friends what you are up to

SEO – it gives quick and easy backlinks to your newly added content.

Mobile updates – update on the move via m.twitter.com

Direct messages – as in all good social networks it as a direct message, very simple to use and doesn’t have the usual email feel which is refreshing

Famous users – easiest way of keeping up to date with your favourite celebrity and accurate stories. Big shout to Shaq best user by far that I follow (http://twitter.com/THE_REAL_SHAQ).

Things to watch out for –

Spammers - using Twitter to get traffic to their wack sites (Twitter seem to have this nicely under control at the mo)

Fake users – as with all social networks, fake profiles are throughout Twitter, I can see Twitter squatters being the next domain squatters.

Bad mouthing – I can see many users and brands especially using Twitter as brand management and bad mouthing competition. Just remember to keep out

PR stunts – I can only imagine PR stunts being made via twitter.

Personally speaking I can see why so many SEO’s are on Twitter, this is the easiest way to get your latest posts reviewed by users, blackhat’s will have a field day unless it is monitored correctly.

If you have had enough of your RSS reader then Twitter might be the right new solution for you. Just remember you wont be able to keep up to date with everyone!

To conclude, I see the real benefit of twitter, I can see the more technical of people using it as a quick update to their friends and colleagues. I can see it taking over as a mobile phone for many power users, the networking opportunities is unreal. I can it being used by those who have had enough of facebook. It has so many good points and is really useful, but be careful and as ever do not give out too much personal information!

Happy posting ;-)

Danny Denhard

http://twitter.com/dannydenhard