If your customers Twitter and you're feeling old and out-of-touch, don't worry. I just started Twittering this month and it's easy and fun. Basically, Twitter.com is a new social networking web site that allows you -- even if you're a small business -- to publish a short blurb about what you're doing at that very moment. Twitter.com also enables other Internet users to "follow" what you're doing. These people can then read all your updates at once later or they can choose to receive them instantly by instant message or by cell phone text messages.
"It's
like Tivo for Instant messenger," says Phil Glatz, who schedules to receive messages and updates from the people and organizations that he cares about - which he reads later. Others adjust the setting so that they're instantly updated in real time.
Although there is potential for small business in Twitter, most
people adopt Twitter to keep track of friends. Think of it as a way of staying in touch. I know that my friend Eddie is at Drew's farm this weekend and that Betty Ray's cat is sick. I like
reading Peterme's ironic observations, which hint at what his day was like. "I pretty much like any food with the word 'fritter' in its name." he twittered, for example, which indicates to me that Peter has been munching on things like apple fritters,
corn fritters, potato fritters, crab fritters -- yum. That's good to
know.
But Twitter is not just for friends and food -- I was surprised to see small
businesses already adopting Twitter to announce things like sales,
events, new content or news; and I was even more surprised to notice my friends
already following them. One friend follows Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Steven Colbert, and another friend follows her
favorite faux punk band, independent movie houses and her labor union.
So there is room here for small businesses too. Woot.com, the online retailer, has a Twitter. There are Twitter feeds for business news, publishers, tech business, internet TV shows, rock bands, photographers, real estate consultants and who knows what else, or where this will lead.
Consider it as another way to broadcast your message to those people who are interested in following what you're up to. If your customers Twitter, perhaps it's time for you to Twitter too. Let them read your message at the perfect moment of their choosing, even if your message is just "pure cotton linens for $99 dollars this week."
And perhaps you might follow what they're doing, or what your associates are up to. Maybe you could spot moments of synchronicity and opportunity. Twitter is poised to get help us get interactive in that way.
To tell you the truth, because it's fresh and new, the dice are still in motion with Twitter and how it will affect small business. However, as more and more people throughout the world project their activities into the public
realm, we're free to follow them. And we can let them know little bits of information about what we're doing too.
Tags: twitter, eric wolfram
