Twitter- a new phenomenon

The Twitter community is a great way to incorporate your list building techniques. Time magazine says, “Twitter is on the way to becoming the next killer ap.” Well, it’s no longer ‘on the way’, it is the next killer ap.
What’s Twitter? Twitter is a free online connectivity service that takes advantage of mobile phone text messaging as well as traditional chat style communication. Sounds simple, right? It is. Twitter is an application originally meant to post short, stream-of-consciousness messages between friends. “I’m getting on the subway now, the crowd is huge.” – that sort of thing. But, like all things net, it has morphed past the original intended purpose.

From the website: When you send in a mobile text (SMS), Twitter sends it out to your group of friends and posts it to your Twitter page. Your friends might not have phone alerts turned on so they may check your web page instead. Likewise, you receive mobile updates on your phone from your friends.

Like chat, but better

There are two differences between traditional chat rooms and Twitter. Users of chat rooms choose a room based on subject matter and then chat with whoever is in that room. Users of Twitter provide contact information (or link to existing contact information) for the people they want to ‘tweek’. It’s like selecting all the best people you want to talk to without narrowing down to one particular shared interest. The second difference is that Twitter reaches across platforms and into cell-phone and PDA text messaging.

By picking individuals instead of topics, Twitter takes advantage of human-style networking relationships. By reaching out into a larger environment, Twitter has an immediacy that chat lacks. (Although you can Twitter online in a format similar to chat.)

How is it being used?

Here are some comments from Twitter users:

• Since I’m a direct response marketer, I’d use twitter to promote specific content. At first, I think my main focus would be on driving people to my site at (Hyperlink). If that worked well, then I’d see how else I could use twitter to drive people to other sites.
• I Twitter to keep up on our industry – SEO/Internet marketing – from the best minds.
• When I worked from home Twitter kept me sane. It’s also a good place to get ideas to blog about.
• Barry, it’s great that you mentioned that because I used Twitter to connect with someone to answer a key question just yesterday. Definitely worth a try one on one via direct message but the one to many option is good too. You can “crowdsource” or “twittersource” answers to your pressing problem.

Definitely something to watch. It is amazing that no matter how connected we currently are through phones, email, and the Internet, we still want more. Twitter is here to stay.

Learn the best strategies for List Building using social networks and forums, from the Global Mentors Team!