The thing with twitter is that for some it is seen as a complete waste of time and something which is mainly used to shamelessly promote yourself and or your company, now i know some people actually use it that way, but you have a choice not to follow those people, so that doesn’t stack up as an argument for me.
Others see twitter as a great opportunity to get your corporate ears to the ground and listen to what is really going on and to start a 2 way dialogue with your users/customers.
This post on the socialized blog about “Seven rules for establishing a corporate presence on Twitter” has been very useful because of a number of conversations recently about twitter and how it might become a valuable tool, not just for listening to what people are saying about us but in enabling 2 way dialogues.
Chris Brogan also posted “On Twitter and listening” which has also helped in breaking down some of the barriers to these types of tools.
In my council we have just started to look at setting up some short and simple sessions for staff focused on raising personal and business awareness in the areas of:
- This is (Twitter/blogging/flickr/etc.)…
- This is what you can get from it.
- This is how to join up and contribute.
- These are the potential personal/corporate benefits.
We would like to provide a broad range of sessions and have so far identified the following as a starting point but will no doubt extend this over time to look at a broad range of tools
- iGoogle + all the various Google gadgets
- Social networking sites – Facebook/Bebo/MySpace/Friends reunited
- RSS feeds/Aggregators
I also come across the common craft website which has lots of really good videos on the subject of social media.
Here are a few to watch – enjoy:
Social Media
Blogs
A journey through life - Carl's Notepad 