For many users, Twitter offers a promotional accessory for existing blogs. One of my followers writes blogs prolifically, including a gardening blog and other material relating to her paid professional writing work. She regularly posts updates to her blog on Twitter as well as finding it an invaluable source of information and intellectual interaction.
Twitter rapidly developed a role for itself in the world of citizen journalism, with on-the-spot messages sent from mobile phones playing an active role in recent events. Twitter was used to communicate news of the bushfires in Victoria on Febraury 7 2009, from beseiged hotel rooms in Mumbai while under terrorist attack, when Flight 1459 ditched in the Hudson River in New York.
Picking up on the effectiveness of Twitter for the citizen journalist, and as a groundstream source of potential news stories, most mainstream media outlets use twitter not only to gather news information but also to promote their own services with headlines of stories as twitter posts.
CNN, BBC, and various outlets of ABC Australia all use twitter as a promotional and for seeking viewer feedback. As an example, Melbourne 774, ABC's metropolitan outlet in Melbourne, sends out road traffic alerts useful to drivers with mobile phones. They are able to promote upcoming events and studio guests as well as seeking news reports from listeners in return. In addition to the corporation-run sites, individual personalities or commentators from various media, including television, radio and newspapers, frequently operate their own tweets and blogs.
Most contemporary politicians have pulled Twitter into their armory. Barack Obama used twitter viogorously during his election campaign, although he has ignored the program since inauguration. Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull attempt to be in the swing of things but their posts are usually little more than mundane references to appointments and policy announcements and potential photo opportunities, leading one to suspect it is a staffer's role to tweet on their behalf.
Any number of get-rich-quick, internet 'gurus' and other sel-promoters are out there, often trying to look as uncommercial as possible while still trying to gather followers to their particular cause. Often these subscriptions are brief as any spammers are pursued vigorously by twitter.
One of the great blessings of Twitter is the fact that the program is free, and using Twitter remains an ad-free zone. The more prudent users who see merit in using Twitter in their business work adopt friend-on-friend attitude rather than any apparent hard sell. And there are many professions which already use the internet as an integral part of their business, and for these businesses Twitter can offer another avenue for exposure of their work. Thus journalists, social media observers, web developers, photographers, educationalists find Twitter attractive.
Amongst keen users, the hash ('#') symbol has special value, allowing followers to search for specific news stories (such as #nbn, discussing the new Australian national broadband network) or groups of tweeters sharing similar interest (such as #photography).
Neil is a professional photographer who regularly uses twitter to maintain a community of followers while quietly promoting his interest and business.
I love that it lets me tap into a live, dynamic stream of conscious. I love that I can see into the minds of the famous and powerful. I love that I can interact with people from all over the world that have a similar interest.
Neil comments on the wariness of twitterers to commercial 'hawkers' and the value of giving out in order to receive:
I think for other businesses wanting to use twitter to connect with their clients/customers, the important things are to interact, to be genuine, to have a personality, to give back more than you ask of others and to truly engage in the global village as a member, rather than to take advantage of it. Imagine yourself as a hawker in a village market: your regular customers are those that know, trust and interact with you. You can make new friends and loyal customers from passers by, but only if you interact with them, rather than shout impersonal advertising messages like some spruiker. Be genuine.
Stephen Fry is a champion of celebrity tweeters, with a list of followers now approaching a million, who seem to hang on his every word, mostly a detailed narrative of his busy working schedule with accompanying images on twitpic.com, down to the menu or wine list at the extravagant restaurants he enjoys.
Twitter is defined by the tweet, a word used to describe the up to 140 character postings of its users. Tweets answer the famous questions that Kipling maintained should be answered by any piece of journalism (and micro-blogging of the Twitter kind is no exception): who, why, how, what and where? Tweets tell us who the tweeter is, why they are tweeting, how they are tweeting, what they are tweeting about and where they are tweeting from.
And ...
At the time of going to press (March 2008) I've got 103,000 Twitter followers, which means I'm getting new "Tweets" all the time. And some of them are very amusing and some of them are rather silly but most of them are entirely charming.
Of course if people are very nice to you you're probably thinking I do this in order to have my ego massaged. But people are also very frank and brusque with me, so I hope it's not entirely that.
And ...
I'm not someone with press offices and all that kind of thing, but those like me in the public eye who have, have discovered it's a magnificent way of cutting out the press.
If people want to announce their new this or their new that, they're going "I'm not going to do an interview, I'm not going to sit in the Dorchester for seven days having one interviewer after another come to me, I'm just going to Tweet it, and point them to my website and forget the press".
And the press are already struggling enough - God knows they've already lost their grip on news to some extent. If they lose their grip on comment and gossip and being a free PR machine as well, they're really in trouble.
So naturally they're simultaneously obsessed because they use it (as it fills up their column inches) but they're also very against it.
So you'll get an increasing number of commentators going "Aren't you just fed up with Twitter? Oh, if Stephen Fry tells me what he's having for breakfast one more time, I think I'll vomit." They really will have a big go at it because it attacks them, it cuts them out.
At the time of publication Stephen Fry has 444,489 followers and follows 55,134 other users. Clearly interaction with the massive number of posts he would see flowing past every day seems incomprehensible other than regularly communicating with a known 'inner circle' of friends.
Grace Piper, from Brooklyn, NY, produces and hosts Fearless Cooking, an online food show and blog. She also 'speaks at technology conferences about content creation and using new media tools such as Twitter, Flickr, Facebook and Blip.tv to help people eat well.' Grace has turned writing recipes in 140 characters into an art form.
I love writing recipes in 140 characters. The idea of turning a two page recipe into a sort of cookbook haiku is a great challenge. I'm one of the first people on twitter to write recipes in one tweet. (email from Grace Piper)
Some examples:
Recession Proof Cooking:Steam broccoli florets for dinner tonight. Next nite simmer stems in broth, add little cream cheese, puree for soup
EasyChickenLegs soak in milk/2tbs vinegar dash hotsauce overnight. Dredge in seasoned bread crumbs Bake 350degree/180celcius
Howard Rheingold is a vigorous daily user of Twitter, describing it as 'a rolling present'.
A way to meet new people - it happens every day.
A way to find people who share interests - I follow people I don't know otherwise but who share an interest in educational technology, video, online activism.
A window on what is happening in multiple worlds, some of which I am familiar with, and others that are new to me. (11)
Rheingold believes that
successful use of Twitter comes down to tuning and feeding. And by "successful" I mean that I gain value - useful information, answers to questions, new friends and colleagues - and that the people who follow me gain value in the form of entertainment, useful information, and some kind of ongoing relationship with me.
And again a comment on the need to interact on Twitter.
If it isn't fun, it won't be useful. If you don't put out, you don't get back. But you have to spend some time tuning and feeding if Twitter is going to be more than an idle amusement to you and your followers (and idle amusement is a perfectly legit use of the medium). (12)
Cindy is a prolific tweeter who works from the family home and interacts with a wide variety of 'friends', while promoting her other writing activities.
What ultimately fuels my Twitter compulsion, as a writer, is the ever-present need for readers: an audience. Having a presence on Twitter allows me to introduce myself to a wide variety of people with interests of all kinds. When I write an article that can be shared online (via blog or web site), I post the link to my article on Twitter as many times as I like (usually spacing it out over time, so that it doesn't come across as constant and blatant self-promotion).