Twitter – to tweet or not to tweet that is the question

If India Knight’s article in The Sunday Times last weekend is anything to go by, the reason people tweet is due to being psychologically needy and having a deep rooted desire to stalk celebrities.

I have recently got more involved with Twitter and I think I can safely say that I am neither of the above. I do follow a ‘celebrity’ – Stephen Fry who seems to have Twitter running through his veins and is an active, informative member of the Twitter-verse. However, the majority of the people I follow are industry colleagues, including clients, competitors and innovative thinkers. It’s a great way to share ideas, best practice and keep up to date on industry news.

Twitter does take a while to get used to and certainly needs time to appreciate any value it has in your world. But you have to use it in order to understand it. Making use of key tools such as TweetDeck and Twhirl, being selective about who you follow and why, as well as ensuring you contribute to the dialogue, you’ll soon see the benefits. And when I say contribute, those that use it to blatantly self-promote are soon gently - or not so gently - publically outed.

I use Twitter because as MD to thebluedoor (a PR agency) having an immediate grasp of today’s and tomorrow’s news agendas is vital for our work. In previous agencies I was always stunned at how lazy some of our industry can be at staying up to date. Being on top of current events is the foundation of what we do. Twitter enables me to immediately be aware of what conversations are happening and where. One of the most helpful features of TweetDeck is TweetScoop – using a scaled tag cloud of words it very clearly shows the user in real time what the hot topics currently are on Twitter.

If only the brand managers at Motrin had been active on Twitter. They would have been monitoring and then engaging in the discussion with what was effectively a large online focus group. Taking part in a dialogue can only help to understand what your target audience needs and gives you the chance to respond proactively and effectively.

News sources are also changing. Citizen journalists are a reality – a great example being this week’s incident at Denver international airport when a flight came off the runway. Thanks to the tweets made by a passenger on his iPhone, his friends, family and subsequently a wider audience knew all the passengers had survived and even saw pictures of the crash site. All well before traditional news channels were able to report on it.

So the answer? My advice, sign up for a Twitter account and start listening to the conversations that interest you and impact your world. You’ll be amazed at the insight available to you – and all in less than 140 characters!