Tonnes of my colleagues, relatives and friends are using Facebook, but not many of them are on the Twitter's bandwagon yet. In fact they...
Tonnes of my colleagues, relatives and friends are using Facebook, but not many of them are on the Twitter's bandwagon yet. In fact they are still clueless about Twitter as if it is something from another planet. To the uninitiated I am not going to go all over again explaining what this little blue bird is about, so please read this post: What The Tweet Is Twitter? Is It A Bird? Today we are going to discover how Twitter is used by millions of people out there. So are you ready to fly with me? Fasten your helmet and seatbelt. Let's tweet!
Most people claimed that Twitter is used widely as a traffic generation or redirection tool. I can't deny that and that is why Twitter appears more like spams to those who have not set their foot in Twitterland. Twitter will never appeal to those who have not really tried it. But once you are in, it is hard for you to get out of it. The moment you pick Twitter up, it will affects your online habits and even your daily life! Twitter will be a distraction in your life.
You have to understand that in order to use Twitter effectively, you will need to invest sacrifice your time. You will have to give your attention to it; you will have to be attached to a certain extend before you get to reap the benefits of using Twitter. Then again tweeting is a manageable activity that can be adopted by anyone and assimilated into any lifestyles. All you have to do is integrate Twitter into your daily life without it being obstructive. Twitter can be darn addicted but once you fathom how to use it, it will be a very effective tool for you.
So do you want to know how to use Twitter? It doesn't matter who you are and what you are doing. Anyone can use Twitter. And I am sure Twitter which is so versatile can be used by just about anyone for any purposes conceivable. The following is a guide on how you can use it for your own personal purposes, marketing purposes or use it purely for your business.
1~Your Branding Tool: Twitter is one of the most powerful social media platform that you can use to build your brands. Twitter allows you to establish yourself (or your blog, website, store etc.) in the virtual world. By being on Twitter, you will be seen as a social personality that is approachable. Twitter leverages your branding and make it easier for you to reach your target audience.
2~Your Instant Answers: You have something that you wanna know and can't find it anywhere in the World Wide Web? You want to know who serve the best cheesecake in your town? Or do you simply need a second opinion from someone else? Tweet about it and you will receive replies in the forms of suggestion and recommendation from other users almost instantaneously. Try it now!
3~Your Traffic Funnel: This is what people love or hate about. Twitter is best known for sending traffic to any blogs or websites. When people retweet your message, it will turn viral and more people will receive your original message containing your URL. So what does this means? More traffic to your designated site(s). Who doesn't want FREE traffic?
4~Your Very Own Classified: Yes you heard me right. You can use Twitter to hire people to get the job done for you without any extra advertising cost. You need a programmer to build a website for you? You need someone to build an iPhone app for you? Tweet about it and ask for recommendations. In no time, you will have lots of prospects especially freelancers, lining up, waiting to be hired by you.
5~Your Online Newspaper: We are living in a mobile world where we want everything to be within our reach easily including our newspaper. A lot of people including me, are using Twitter to grab the latest news and headlines all over the world promptly. You can subscribe to certain websites such as CNN for your preferred news. This way you will know all the top news even before your mutt deliver your saliva-soaked newspaper to you.
6~Your Friendster: Still remember Friendster? I used to make lots of friends in the virtual world via the forgotten social networking site. You can also use Twitter to make more friends. You can easily befriend someone and track his or her tweets. Unlike the rigid Facebook, Twitter allows you to connect with people who are not in your circles. Believe me that you can find trustworthy friend who will be with you for a long, long time.
7~Your Networker: A~ha! This is somewhat similar to the one mentioned earlier. Instead of using Twitter as your Friendster to make more personal friends, you can also use Twitter as an effective networker for you to connect with like-minded people in the same industry or niche. In other words, you can forge a better relationship of even partnership that can provide a win-win situation for everyone. This is especially true when you receive beneficial testimonials or recommendations from people them regarding your products or services.
8~Your Affordable Project Management Tool: Believe it or not, Twitter can be used by a company (university, organization etc.) as a very cost-effective intranet that connects everyone. All you need to do is set the Twitter account private and voila it is your very own secure and confidential "intranet". Only authorized Twitter users can have access into it. For example, team members can easily communicate with each other while handing a group project which requires them to work on different locations.
9~Your To-do List: You tweet almost every minute, but you always forget what you need to do? Why not use Twitter as your personal to-do-list? You can use twitter as your very own personal reminder to jot down what you need to do. You can favourite that particular tweets and refer to them later to remind you what you need to do. Likewise there is this very special task manager that can be synched with your Twitter account which is known as RememberTheMilk!
10~Your Bookmarker: Now you can bring your bookmarks with you no matter where you are. Wait...it should be: Now your bookmarks will follow you to anywhere you go. Gone are the days where you have to take note of what you want to use later. All you need to do is bookmark your important stuff by marking favourite. You can be anywhere right now away from your laptop and still access your bookmarks to important links or resources simply by checking out your favourites in Twitter.
11~Your Business Notifier: Wanna let your customers know there is a new product in store? Wanna rake in profit by having sales for your stores? Just send all your customers a tweet. Customers can subscribe to your company's Twitter to receive all the latest notifications of promotions, discounts etc. Best of all, Twitter is doing all this for you for FREE!
12~Your Event Updater: Wanna know what happens to your favourite singer in a competition? Contest organisers can use Twitter to inform fans or followers regarding the latest news in a competition. For example, who has been voted out or what has won this week's contest. Again, Twitter allows you to inform the latest happenings to your audience for free.
13~Your Live Coverage Telecast: Almost similar to event updater, but this time it is more snappy! Yes, by using Twitter you can provide live coverage of an event or competition that you are watching to all your followers. I have personally used Twitter to provide real-time commentary for football matches, badminton matches and event launching. Some followers will find this useful especially those who can't watch a certain match or event live.
14~Your Prospects Seeker: If you are selling a product or service; or if you are a marketer, you will be happy to know that Twitter is another venue where you can find targeted prospects. Simply search for the keywords of what you are selling, and voila tweets related to your products or services will appear. Then you can personally communicate with those Twitter users more delicately (via Direct Message) to pitch your products.
15~Your Personal Diary: Who needs to keep a diary when you have Twitter right? Honestly I never have any diary before, but with the advent of Twitter I can now track what I have done in the past. I can easily see what had happened in a particular time by checking the tweets that I have sent. By doing so I can analyze how I manage my time. You want a confidential diary? Just make your Twitter private and now not even your mom can read about what you have done last summer. LOL :D
16~Your Impromptu Meetings Maker: This is one of the most exciting things that Twitter can do. Let's say you are going to the cinema to watch a movie, not knowing who will be joining...you send a tweet to meet fellow twitter users at a specific location and time. When you reach there, throngs of other twitter followers are waiting for you to watch The Social Network. How cool is that?
17~Your Charity Avenue: Twitter can also be used for charitable purposes. Yes you can actually use twitter to help the poor and needy around the world. Still remember the Tsunami that hit Indonesia a few weeks ago? I actually tweeted about how Malaysians can send funds to help them. Besides that you can also use Twitter to help locate a missing person. Who knows you tweet might lead to a discovery of a kidnapped child right?
18~Your Idea Box: Having the usual writer's block again? Don't know what to write for your upcoming blog post? Why don't you allow Twitter to help you decide? Yes, you can find inspiration from Twitter by reading what is trending in Twitter. Or you can simply search for what you want by using hashtags such as, #nowreading, #nowplaying etc. to help you discover what are people reading or watching right now. Now start writing that post!
19~Your Votes Getter: Want people to vote for you? Why not asking your Twitter followers first? I am sure they are more than happy to cast their votes for you. You can use twitter to acquire votes for your blog posts in other social networking sites such as Digg, StumbleUpon, Reddit etc or you can simply ask them to retweet it. Likewise you can also use Twitter to ask followers to vote for you in a particular competition. Your followers will throw in their supports for you and they can even help you garner more votes from their own followers.
20~Your Money Maker: Twitter can be a money magnet if you know how to use if properly. You are already tweeting on a regular basis right? Why don't you make full use of your Twitter account by making some profit out of it. I have personally earned thousands with my Twitter account alone. You too, can make money tweeting. Read this post to find out more: 8+13 Ways to Make Money With Twitter. I hope you can make some pocket money with this little blue bird.
There you have it folks. 20 ways on how you can use Twitter. I hope this post of mine will give you (especially beginners) a rough guide on how integrate Twitter effectively into your daily life. If you find this useful, feel free do tweet it ok. Last but not least, do follow me on Twitter. And...ouh yeah...if you have more ways on how to use Twitter please share them with all of us. :)
20 Ways On How To Use Twitter
1~Your Branding Tool: Twitter is one of the most powerful social media platform that you can use to build your brands. Twitter allows you to establish yourself (or your blog, website, store etc.) in the virtual world. By being on Twitter, you will be seen as a social personality that is approachable. Twitter leverages your branding and make it easier for you to reach your target audience.
2~Your Instant Answers: You have something that you wanna know and can't find it anywhere in the World Wide Web? You want to know who serve the best cheesecake in your town? Or do you simply need a second opinion from someone else? Tweet about it and you will receive replies in the forms of suggestion and recommendation from other users almost instantaneously. Try it now!
3~Your Traffic Funnel: This is what people love or hate about. Twitter is best known for sending traffic to any blogs or websites. When people retweet your message, it will turn viral and more people will receive your original message containing your URL. So what does this means? More traffic to your designated site(s). Who doesn't want FREE traffic?
4~Your Very Own Classified: Yes you heard me right. You can use Twitter to hire people to get the job done for you without any extra advertising cost. You need a programmer to build a website for you? You need someone to build an iPhone app for you? Tweet about it and ask for recommendations. In no time, you will have lots of prospects especially freelancers, lining up, waiting to be hired by you.
5~Your Online Newspaper: We are living in a mobile world where we want everything to be within our reach easily including our newspaper. A lot of people including me, are using Twitter to grab the latest news and headlines all over the world promptly. You can subscribe to certain websites such as CNN for your preferred news. This way you will know all the top news even before your mutt deliver your saliva-soaked newspaper to you.
6~Your Friendster: Still remember Friendster? I used to make lots of friends in the virtual world via the forgotten social networking site. You can also use Twitter to make more friends. You can easily befriend someone and track his or her tweets. Unlike the rigid Facebook, Twitter allows you to connect with people who are not in your circles. Believe me that you can find trustworthy friend who will be with you for a long, long time.
7~Your Networker: A~ha! This is somewhat similar to the one mentioned earlier. Instead of using Twitter as your Friendster to make more personal friends, you can also use Twitter as an effective networker for you to connect with like-minded people in the same industry or niche. In other words, you can forge a better relationship of even partnership that can provide a win-win situation for everyone. This is especially true when you receive beneficial testimonials or recommendations from people them regarding your products or services.
8~Your Affordable Project Management Tool: Believe it or not, Twitter can be used by a company (university, organization etc.) as a very cost-effective intranet that connects everyone. All you need to do is set the Twitter account private and voila it is your very own secure and confidential "intranet". Only authorized Twitter users can have access into it. For example, team members can easily communicate with each other while handing a group project which requires them to work on different locations.
9~Your To-do List: You tweet almost every minute, but you always forget what you need to do? Why not use Twitter as your personal to-do-list? You can use twitter as your very own personal reminder to jot down what you need to do. You can favourite that particular tweets and refer to them later to remind you what you need to do. Likewise there is this very special task manager that can be synched with your Twitter account which is known as RememberTheMilk!
10~Your Bookmarker: Now you can bring your bookmarks with you no matter where you are. Wait...it should be: Now your bookmarks will follow you to anywhere you go. Gone are the days where you have to take note of what you want to use later. All you need to do is bookmark your important stuff by marking favourite. You can be anywhere right now away from your laptop and still access your bookmarks to important links or resources simply by checking out your favourites in Twitter.
11~Your Business Notifier: Wanna let your customers know there is a new product in store? Wanna rake in profit by having sales for your stores? Just send all your customers a tweet. Customers can subscribe to your company's Twitter to receive all the latest notifications of promotions, discounts etc. Best of all, Twitter is doing all this for you for FREE!
12~Your Event Updater: Wanna know what happens to your favourite singer in a competition? Contest organisers can use Twitter to inform fans or followers regarding the latest news in a competition. For example, who has been voted out or what has won this week's contest. Again, Twitter allows you to inform the latest happenings to your audience for free.
13~Your Live Coverage Telecast: Almost similar to event updater, but this time it is more snappy! Yes, by using Twitter you can provide live coverage of an event or competition that you are watching to all your followers. I have personally used Twitter to provide real-time commentary for football matches, badminton matches and event launching. Some followers will find this useful especially those who can't watch a certain match or event live.
14~Your Prospects Seeker: If you are selling a product or service; or if you are a marketer, you will be happy to know that Twitter is another venue where you can find targeted prospects. Simply search for the keywords of what you are selling, and voila tweets related to your products or services will appear. Then you can personally communicate with those Twitter users more delicately (via Direct Message) to pitch your products.
15~Your Personal Diary: Who needs to keep a diary when you have Twitter right? Honestly I never have any diary before, but with the advent of Twitter I can now track what I have done in the past. I can easily see what had happened in a particular time by checking the tweets that I have sent. By doing so I can analyze how I manage my time. You want a confidential diary? Just make your Twitter private and now not even your mom can read about what you have done last summer. LOL :D
16~Your Impromptu Meetings Maker: This is one of the most exciting things that Twitter can do. Let's say you are going to the cinema to watch a movie, not knowing who will be joining...you send a tweet to meet fellow twitter users at a specific location and time. When you reach there, throngs of other twitter followers are waiting for you to watch The Social Network. How cool is that?
17~Your Charity Avenue: Twitter can also be used for charitable purposes. Yes you can actually use twitter to help the poor and needy around the world. Still remember the Tsunami that hit Indonesia a few weeks ago? I actually tweeted about how Malaysians can send funds to help them. Besides that you can also use Twitter to help locate a missing person. Who knows you tweet might lead to a discovery of a kidnapped child right?
18~Your Idea Box: Having the usual writer's block again? Don't know what to write for your upcoming blog post? Why don't you allow Twitter to help you decide? Yes, you can find inspiration from Twitter by reading what is trending in Twitter. Or you can simply search for what you want by using hashtags such as, #nowreading, #nowplaying etc. to help you discover what are people reading or watching right now. Now start writing that post!
19~Your Votes Getter: Want people to vote for you? Why not asking your Twitter followers first? I am sure they are more than happy to cast their votes for you. You can use twitter to acquire votes for your blog posts in other social networking sites such as Digg, StumbleUpon, Reddit etc or you can simply ask them to retweet it. Likewise you can also use Twitter to ask followers to vote for you in a particular competition. Your followers will throw in their supports for you and they can even help you garner more votes from their own followers.
20~Your Money Maker: Twitter can be a money magnet if you know how to use if properly. You are already tweeting on a regular basis right? Why don't you make full use of your Twitter account by making some profit out of it. I have personally earned thousands with my Twitter account alone. You too, can make money tweeting. Read this post to find out more: 8+13 Ways to Make Money With Twitter. I hope you can make some pocket money with this little blue bird.
Why don't you tell us?
There you have it folks. 20 ways on how you can use Twitter. I hope this post of mine will give you (especially beginners) a rough guide on how integrate Twitter effectively into your daily life. If you find this useful, feel free do tweet it ok. Last but not least, do follow me on Twitter. And...ouh yeah...if you have more ways on how to use Twitter please share them with all of us. :)
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