If you asked most people a year ago if they use Twitter, they’d have just looked at you funny. Wait a second, if you ask MOST people today if they use Twitter, they are still going to look at you funny. But, if you ask anybody in the tech industry, anybody who spends much time online or now the marketing industry if THEY use Twitter and their answer is most likely going to be yes. If you are one of the 8 people left on the planet that read blogs but haven’t yet heard of Twitter, let me give you a quick description.

Twitter is a site where people micro-blog. Each message, called a “Tweet”, is limited to 140 characters. Normally it answers the question “what am I doing right now?” People then sign up to follow their friends messages to find out what they are doing right now.

Twitter As A Marketing Tool
Over the past year, Twitter went from being a novelty item to being one of the most powerful tools for getting your message out to the masses. To give you an example, Barack Obama (as of the time of this post) has over 72,000 followers on Twitter. He has sent 187 messages out telling his followers where he’s speaking, what rallies he’s attending, discussions he’s having that can be seen online, etc… It doesn’t take a genius to figure out how powerful it is to have people listening to what you have to say. Want a good example? On 9/1, Obama sent a message asking his followers to give $5 to the Red Cross by sending a text message or calling an 800 number. Think about it. He could have just as easily been sending his followers to go perform some action that pays him a portion of everything they earn. 72,000 people who have gone out of their way to receive marketing messages from Barack Obama. In the right hands, that could be very profitable, don’t you think?

Not everybody uses Twitter as a way to make money. Some people/companies use Twitter as a supplement to their blog or to tell people that new information is available on their site. The idea being that the people who have signed up to follow you (as a company, in this instance) are your die hard fans who want to know AS SOON as new info or new features become available. It is not uncommon to see posts that simply say “New blog post about blah blah blah. Check it out” and have a link to the new post. Sure, the same people that are your followers would most likely find that new post on your site, but by telling them via Twitter, they know immediately and they come to your site right away. And as a bonus, the text that you sent in your Tweet will also show up when people search for words on Twitter that exist in your post.

Ways To Twitter
There are several ways to use Twitter, starting with twitter.com. Then you have free software apps for your desktop. I personally have tried two of them. Twhirl was the first one I tried. It has a simple interface and as far as I know, it’s the only software that lets you manage multiple Twitter accounts from one location. Next I moved on to TweetDeck. This is mainly what I use when I’m at my desk as it lets me see replies to my tweets in one column, direct messages in another column and then I have the ability to create new columns that search the Twitter Universe for keywords I select. This is a great way to find other people who have the same interests as you.

When I’m not at my desk, that doesn’t stop me from sending tweets. Actually, when you are out and about is when you should be tweeting the most. You can add your cell phone number to your twitter account which allows you to send updates from your phone. There are two main ways this can be done. The first way is to send an SMS message from any phone. However, if you have an iPhone, there’s a free application called Twitterrific. This lets you post Tweets and read the Tweets of those you follow. I personally like Twitterrific because as I’m typing my message, it lets me know how many more characters I have before reaching my 140 limit.

Who should you follow on Twitter?
After I added all my friends and co-workers, I did a few searches. I found people who were twittering about things that interested me. I started following them and then I’d check out their list of people they follow. I found some terrific photography blogs this way. Give it a shot, you’ll be pleasantly surprised at your results.

If you aren’t already using Twitter, you owe it to yourself to at least give it a shot. It’s certainly not for everybody, but it’s definitely a marketing tool that needs to be considered. You can find me at twitter.com/vegasgeek