A question for the people who do use Twitter…do any of you, or any people you know, follow any business? I’m not talking CNN or even Warner Brothers, I’m talking like a local pet shop or floor wax company.
I ask because Twitter is “all the rage” in SEO right now (search engine optimization). That and Facebook. This SEO company that works with my company is all about pushing their customers into setting up Twitter and Facebook accounts, and then putting icons on their Web sites so people can follow/friend them. Some businesses are also encouraged to have blogs on top of all that.
I can’t think of any business I’d ever want to follow that way. If I want coupons, I want them via email or from their Web site. I definitely don’t want their email notices, tweets, Facebook status updates and to read their blog.
This sort of “how can we use these new, free technology channels to further our business” makes me a little bit grumpy.
Oh, and here’s Stephen Colbert’s feed. His tweets may seem goofy and irrelevant but they’re fun to get out of the blue.
I could see it for like a restaurant I liked so I could hear about happy hour specials or new menu items or something but not like…a dry cleaners or dentist. I could see it being really really helpful for a realtor and their clients, actually.
I had a problem with delivery from Powells.com. So I sent a message to their twitter–“It’s been 3 weeks since I ordered my books. Still haven’t arrived. Is this normal?” Within an hour, somebody responded to me, got my information, double-checked my order, sent me an email with an explanation, then threw in a book that I wanted that was on backorder, sent it with free delivery and credited my account for the delivery charge I had paid on my other shipment. I follow a few other businesses (like rifftrax’s feed) for regular updates b/c more often than not their emails go right to my spam folder.
I am finding Twitter to be a great tool for me, largely for my aspiration as a photographer to see my work being sold.
I’ve found several excellent photographers on Twitter who do work similar in subject to what I like to take photos of, and whom I am following.
Thanks to that, I have been picking up large numbers of really useful photography related web pages to bookmark for future reference. I’m certain I would have taken much longer, if ever, to find these pages and sites without Twitter.
And just seeing the photos these photographers post to web sites is really inspiring for me.
Some of the photographers I am following on Twitter have also started to follow me., which has been personally pleasing. (I have some photos on Flickr, which has a facility to send tweets about one’s photos to Twitter. I have been using that option for most of the photos I have there.)
Outside of photography, I also enjoy following web comics, and have been finding several creators of such comics are on Twitter, so I am also following some of them and enjoying their tweets. One of them occasionally writes tweets in the voices of the characters in his comic, and those are very funny.
I’m also a fan of science fiction, and am discovering sf writers on Twitter whose tweets I also find very interesting.
I’m also a big fan of Mythbusters. Grant Imahara and Adam Savage are both on Twitter; I am following them.
Yeah, it’s largely useless for its originally touted purpose, which I perceived to be communication with people you already know. But for keeping up with local events and communicating with corporations, I’ve found it pretty useful. If you use it like I use it, it’s sort of a news ticker that you occasionally talk back to.
What I don’t understand is how people can follow hundreds of people/entities at once. I’m following like 10 people and I get a pretty steady stream. Would hate to sift through any more than I already do.
Right now I’m following 64 people. I’m think I find that manageable because they all have their own rates of posting, and it works out to what for me is a reasonable amount of incoming material. No idea how many more I’ll be able to follow and still have that reasonable amount.
I tweeted once when I got my twitter account. But I do actively use it to follow companies I like for promos and coupons and the like. It’s pretty useful in that sense, but I don’t feel the need to bloat the world with my curious thoughts.
Since you allowed multiple votes, I went with both “No, didn’t”, the technical answer to your question, as well as “I read tweets only”, as some of my friends automatically put their tweets on Facebook, which I do use.
I also have nothing against using Twitter, other than it’s lack of other features. Once I’m no longer housebound, I might actually update my Facebook status often enough to justify automatically tweeting it.
I use it as an alternate messaging service for collecting severe weather reports that I pass on to the local NWS office. I will also broadcast watches, warnings and related events. I can’t stand knowing each fart, left turn and volume of bellybutton lint, though.
Interesting! A cancer survivor with the handle @Drew is auctioning off the name (four-letter handles are nearly impossible to come buy apparently) with the proceeds going to the LIVESTRONG charity. Drew Carey has bid $25,000 saying that if he gets 100k followers to his /DrewFromTV account by November 9 he’ll up the bid to $100,000. (He’s got a ways to go, though.)
Check out the inexplicable butt-hurt from people claiming it’s “not fair” to sell Twitter names. IT HAS BEEN CLEARED BY TWITTER BECAUSE IT’S FOR CHARITY DUH!
