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Everyone is using it but Twitter's application in the world of business is not immediately obvious. Twitter themselves have realised this and have put together a special guide to try to entice more business users to rely on the service.
Why Twitter?
The unique selling point of the Twitter service is instant search, a point that Google are looking to emulate with their upcoming Wave project (along with killing Facebook and becoming king of all Internet). Instant search is not only exciting for social use - trends are immediately fed back into the system as users are encouraged to involve themselves through retweeting, @replying and various hashtag games but from a business perspective this can provide companies with instant feedback of customer thought on their product.
The benefit here is that as users are encouraged to tweet any idle thought that passes through their heads, you're more likely to find out what a user actually thinks about your service. This is particularly suited to the English mentality as customers are far more likely to gripe to their friends about a product than actually contact the company that sold or manufactured it.
What to Tweet
The special guide also recommends that you use Twitter for the distribution of special offers, so look forward to the appearance of [keyword +"promotional code"] in the trending topics for the next few months. Although personally I have a sneaky feeling that this is not entirely altruistic and there are just a few thrift hunters at Twitter HQ!
The guide contains everything you need to know to get your Business Twitter started, from a jargon buster to case studies of successful business uses. Notably it gives the following advice about the style your tweets should take: "A conversational, playful tone flies beautifully on Twitter, so don’t hesitate to act some fun into your messages."
Conventionally the Internet has been a way of presenting information but in Twitter it becomes far more conversational. If you're unwilling to get hands on and friendly with your customers, Twitter is not for you.
See Twitter 101 for Business — A Special Guidefor further information and start following us at @SearchDesignDev
