Twitter: the New Facebook

Youve probably heard of Facebook by now. Its that social
networking site founded by the upstart 25-year-old whippersnapper named Mark
Zuckerberg. I have good news for you: Zuckerberg is old news. Twitter is the
new Facebook.

Some of you have already heard the word Twitter thrown
about in conversation, along with weird terms like tweet, follow and
tweetie. Fear not; Twitter is far simpler than its social networking
counterparts, and easily just as powerful.

For example, Sarah Milstein at OReilly Media recently wrote
that Dell Computer claims more than $1 million in revenue by promoting deals on
hardware through its Dell Outlet Twitter account (twitter.com/delloutlet). She
also reports a similar story from at Namecheap, which credits Twitter with most
of the 20 percent increase in domain registrations.

So what is Twitter? It is a service that allows you to post
a public message in 140 characters or less. These messages are the tweets. If
you think someones messages are interesting, you can choose to follow that
person, which means that when you log in, you will get to see his or her latest
messages.

If other people choose to follow you, they will see your
latest messages (or tweets) when they log in.

You can choose to check for new tweets on the web, using a
desktop client or through your phone. If you have a fancy phone like the
iPhone, you can use special client applications like Tweetie. If you have an
older phone, you can choose to have Twitter send you a text message whenever
there is a new message from the people you are following.

Thats it. Everything else about Twitter builds on that
fundamental functionality: you can post 140 characters of text so that anyone
in the world can see it from anywhere.

Heres the biggest leap of faith: you have to try it.

On the surface, it sounds like the dumbest service in the
world. Its not. Having a conversation on Twitter is one of the most compelling
experiences you can have in social networking. Its immediate, its direct and
its personal.

So do yourself a favor. Sign up for Twitter and give it a
try. Here are nine tips to get you off on the right foot when it comes to
delivering delicious, 140-character blasts:

• Use
  Twitter Search (https://search.twitter.com) to follow people tweeting about
  things that interest you.
• Twitter
  is not the same as e-mail. You do not have to read every tweet that comes
  through from the people you follow.
• Twitter
  is a low-friction service for a reason. Tweet things that interest you.
  Relevance is overrated.
• Use
  the background on your Twitter page to promote your brand. See @comcastcares
  for an example.
• Try
  high-visibility conversations by replying (sending a message starting with
  @username) to twitter elites like
  @scobleizer. Their replies will gain you new followers.
• Influence
  in social media is built on trust. Twitter allows you to build personal
  connections at scale for your business.
• Even
  if youre not on Twitter, chances are good that someone else is talking about
  your products. Its better to have a voice in that conversation. For instance,
  John Battelle, who founded and runs the ad network Federated Media, launched a
  sponsored Twitter portal in late March designed to aggregate the tweets, or
  messages, of company executives, called Exectweets (exectweets.com).
• Twitter
  can act as a bellwether for product ideas, saving you money on focus groups and
  market research.
• Your
  Twitter bio is indexed by Google. Try to use keywords relevant to your business
  so that your Twitter page will turn up in searches.

Jason Preston is the director of new media at the
Parnassus Group, a Redmond-based social media agency and publisher of the Eat
Sleep Publish blog. Reach him at [email protected].