How to use Twitter to your advantage?
A month ago i finally decided to jump on the bandwagon and started “Twittering”. When Twitter was first introduced it didn’t make any sense to me whatsoever. Someone told me, Twitter is like Facebook’s status updates. Now i know better. To me, Facebook is to connect with your family/friends and share pictures/notes. Twitter is more about finding and following people/businesses that i find interesting. People i follow include, WSJ, ComScore, Hitwise, Silicon Valley Insider to name a few. I follow these people for most update to news – ok i’ll admit it i’m a news junkie 
So how do you use twitter to your advantage?
Well first by not twitting about things that people do no care about. Twitts like this
makes me want to say: And i care because? So i categorize these kind of twitts and people as social – that’s what facebook is for.
Twitter and also Facebook are more about taking advantage of people power. Do you know what is the #1 influencer when someone is trying to purchase something? Family and friends. Consumers value opinions of family and friends more than any ads or articles. That’s where Twitter comes into play. If you are looking for good thai restaurant in Brooklyn, NY – ask other Twitties. Twitter is useful if you want information about ongoing sale or want an opinion about which camera to buy.
If you are a business owner, twitter is a great way to get consumer’s opinion about upcoming product release or to keep track of what people are saying about your product in real time. The best example is, couple of weekends ago i visited this great vegetarian restaurant in union square called Maoz. After having a great falafal, i twitted from my phone about how great the food was. Before i got home, Maoz already re-twitted my comment and started following me. I have never seen anything like this. Maoz is using social media/twitter to it’s advantage and keeping track of what’s being said about it’s food and restaurant. For website owners/bloggers, it’s a great way to drive traffic to your site/blog (just like what i am going to do to this blog post ) and have a loyal followers.
To summarize, you can use twitter to get opinions about things you are consider buying, get real-time restaurant reviews, opinions. For businesses, it’s a great way to keep track of what customers are saying about your product and drive traffic to your business.
Tejas
