Twitter grows in influence

I've been doing A LOT more training and education on social media -- both internally and with clients.  This is a great sign that B2B companies really are believing that social media can't be ignored.  Yet, it's very interesting to see the reactions and to read the interest level of the people I train on the various dimensions, tools and techniques of social media.

Probably the most interesting set of reactions stem from discussions about Twitter.  To be sure, it is a mixed bag.  Most really want to understand what it is all about, but have a perception that it (and microblogging in general) has little value because of the popular notion that it is used primarily for people to declare what they are eating for lunch or that they are watching American Idol.  This kind of banter certainly pervades Twitter, but it should be thought of as a social network first, and many use it to communicate with friends, so this type dialogue has value in that context.

The business context of Twitter, however, is growing in prominence and signficance.  Ann All has a great post on IT Business Edge that captures what several bleeding edge "Twitterati" are doing with Twitter as a business networking and influence channel.  Ann cites how one of these users boiled down the business uses to three areas: "promotions/marketing, market research/analysis, and communications with business suppliers and partners."

But, just as with blogs and social media in general, the first step for any company is to listen.  What is the conversation Twitter saying about your company, your product(s), your competitor(s) or your market segment?  There are very easy tools to use to do this listening, ranging from Twitter-specific search engines like Terraminds, to new applications like Twemes, which is designed to add to Twitter search the ability to more easily identify groups of people talking about a topic of relevance to a company.  For example, an open source software company can use Twemes to listen to the Twitter conversation on the topic of open source and use this as a very specific entry point to join that conversation.

What will this listening reveal?  For us, we've found that industry analysts are using Twitter to ask their network who has used a client's product and their opinions during briefings with clients.  We've also seen developers and IT pros reveal that they are thinking of evaluating vendors' products and asking for opinions from peers (i.e. trusted resources).  So there is very clear evidence to us that our clients' influencers and potential buyers are usine Twitter for relevant conversation.  This affords these the opportunity to participate and engage -- in a way that adds value to the conversation. 

In my opinion, Twitter is following a similar path as blogs and Facebook in terms of gaining more business value.  The difference is that it seems to be on a much steeper trajectory.  The resources cited here will help you determine its potential value (of course, we can help as well), but they key is to look past the "I just had a great burrito" tweet and dig deeper into the conversation.

Where do you see Twitter's business value?

Comments

[Ken Savage]

nice post to show that microblogging is NOT just a fancy IM application. Try tracking some keywords for your own company on Twitter and see what people are saying.

We see people complaining and praising our product in real time. Great way to join a conversation and apply some PR101.

[lois paul]

Interesting post, Ted, which explained some real business uses for Twitter. Bringing it back to the PR biz, is anyone using Twitter to find out what journalists are interested in writing about particular topics or themes? Not to pitch them, but to get a read on their interest in certain issues.

[Ted Weismann]

Great question, Lois. Indeed, there are a few journalists on Twitter every day to seek out sources and getting insights. Ones I know of include Sarah Lacy and Steve Baker of BusinessWeek. There are lots of bloggers, however.