What are the uses of Twitter?
Aug 03, 2010
Table of contents:
- Intimacy with people
- Sharing news and content
- Breaking News
- Sharing Experiences
- Business Opportunities
When you first start using Twitter it’s hard to understand exactly what the platform is good for and so many users sign up then leave without ever really scratching the surface. Here we present a number of excellent uses for Twitter.
Intimacy with people
Twitter offers a revolutionary way of listening to the intimate details of other people’s lives, which is a natural human trait bestowed in all of us. If you are interested in someone’s views, ideas and what they are up to then Twitter is a great way to connect with that person, even if you have never met them or they live in a completely different part of the world. Due to the asynchronous nature of Twitter great influencers need not follow every person who is interested in them by allowing people to follow them without confirmation.
Twitter also allows you to keep up to date with you friends and family who you may not be able to communicate with everyday. Instead, you could follow what they are up to and gain an insight to how they are on a new intimacy level that otherwise may have been lost due to time or distance.
Twitter has given organisations a new platform to communicate with their consumers. If a consumer feels aggrieved by a company then it has become extremely easy for that organisation to step in and solve the problem. A quick scan of Twitter for a search term can also lead to organisations offering a solution to a problem and creating a relationship with that consumer that has never before been possible.
Sharing news and content
Twitter has become a mecca for sharing content amongst people of the same interests. If you find an article or a resource which you feel is useful to your followers or people who are influenced you then tweeting about it and including a link is a great way of sharing it. It is also a great way of showing trust as your influence and respect amongst your peers will be determined by the quality of what you are sharing. By sharing you are effectively putting your name on this resource and saying it is worthy of your time. In order to discover new great content it is important to include people in your following list that share great content outside of your normal net.
Breaking News
Twitter has become the first place many people go to in order to discover what is happening in the world. Due to the citizen journalists nature of the platform, Twitter often breaks news stories way in advance of the traditional press. Many new media journalists have started relying on Twitter and the future holds a lot of great opportunities for news coverage to expand and become more relevant and efficient for their audience.
Sharing Experiences
Twitter offers a great way to share experiences with other people of shared interests. By using the hashtag method of categorising tweets users are able to group messages and therefore able to find people tweeting about the same topics. For example, people at a sports event, music concert or news event can all talk and interact together by using Twitter to share opinions or advice.
Business Opportunities
Twitter offers huge potential to organisations who wish to connect with their consumers. By creating a shared platform for communication Twitter has created an open field for people to rant or praise and for organisations to market and to help its consumers or potential customers. Those organisations who seize these opportunities will gain considerable advantage in the future as social media and internet technology thrive.
