Why Twitter Is Such A Useful Tool
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Recently I’ve been seeing more and more blog posts about Twitter which has made me look at it a bit closer. On first appearances Twitter seems like nothing more than a frivolous waste of time but when you start to delve a little deeper you will start to see that it can actually be a very useful tool.
So What Is Twitter All About?
No doubt you’ve heard quite a bit about Twitter already but just in case you haven’t it is a micro-blogging platform where you can post updates about what you are currently doing. Think of status updates in Facebook and you’ve pretty much got the idea.
Each update (or “tweet” in Twitter-speak) can be up to 140 characters long and can be posted either via the Twitter website, a SMS message from your cell phone, an instant messenger or one of the many third-party applications that have been developed.
As well as being able to post your tweets you can also follow other people to keep up to date with what they are doing and also get people to follow you. This is where it starts to get interesting because you are now building a network of other people using Twitter. Once you start doing this you can also post a second kind of tweet where you reply to something somebody else has said. It’s a great way to build up a rapport with people in your Twitter network.
Twitter for Bloggers
Another cool feature of Twitter is that it can easily be integrated with other websites. For example, in my post about WordPress plugins I listed Twitter Tools as one of my recommended plugins because it makes integrating your blog with Twitter so simple.
The first and perhaps most obvious thing it can do for you is to automatically post a tweet every time you post to your blog. This is handy once you’ve built up a following on Twitter since you are now automatically promoting your blog.
That’s not all it can do though. You also have the option of either automatically posting to your blog whenever you post a tweet or posting a daily digest post of all your tweets for the day. Personally I prefer the daily digest option since tweets are so short and may not warrant an entire post of their own. Also, if you find a handy web link simply post a tweet about it and it will end up on your blog without you having to write a full post about it.
So now you’ve covering both sides of the coin. Your Twitter followers can see that you have posted on your blog and your blog readers can catch up with what you’ve been posting on Twitter.
Twitter and Facebook
Another way that you can gain more exposure whenever you post a tweet is to add the Twitter application to your Facebook profile. This gives you the option of adding a profile box showing your latest tweet and it can also automatically update your status whenever you post a new tweet. When you start to combine this with the blogging approach I mentioned earlier you are starting to widen your sphere of influence - every tweet gets distributed to your blog and Facebook and every blog post is now promoted on Twitter which in turn gets posted to Facebook automatically.
Twitter and RSS
At the bottom of your Twitter page you’ll find a link where you can get a RSS feed of your latest tweets. This again is powerful stuff for integrating with other websites. As an example I’ve added my Twitter RSS feed to my Jaiku profile so now all my tweets - and blog posts thanks to Twitter Tools - get promoted in yet another place. Of course this it just a simple example of how you can use your Twitter RSS feed since you now have the ability to automatically publish your tweets at any site that can consume a RSS feed.
I hope that this blog has given you some ideas of how you can use Twitter as part of your overall internet marketing strategy. Why not follow me on Twitter and keep up to date with what I’m up to?
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