by Glen Allsopp of PluginID. Follow him @viperchill.
We all have our reasons for being active on Twitter, the popular micro-blogging site. Whether you want to grow the readership of your blog, want to connect with like-minded people, or simply want to socialise online, you have your reasons for being a member.
Today I want to look at Twitter from a different perspective, and cover seven uses for Twitter that can be highly useful but certainly aren’t very common.
1. Reputation Management
A few days ago Darren mentioned how Twitter have now tweaked their title tags which allows for higher search engine rankings for your profile name. This may seem like quite a small and irrelevant change to some, but those with their focus on reputation management will know this is a big change.
With the internet growing in popularity by the day, anyone can ‘Google’ your name and find out a lot of information about you, therefore it’s important that there are no negative results in the top 10 listings. If you are working on protecting yourself, you can build an optimised Twitter profile and update it regularly so that you cover one of those top spaces.
2. Product / Service Reviews
Have you ever wanted to find a product review from someone who doesn’t seem to be pushing the item as an affiliate? I know I have. A good way to do this is to use the Twitter Search Engine and type in exactly what you are looking for. Of course you won’t find results for everything, but when people are pleased or angry about a product or service, they are likely to want to share it with the world.
3. Testimonials
Whether you are promoting your own product, or you want some genuine reviews for a product you want to share with your followers / blog readers, then Twitter can be great for that. I’ve been considering doing a review for ‘The Sedona Method’ on my blog which is a personal development program that has literally changed my life.
I asked my Twitter followers what they thought of it and got some great responses. Now if I was to put a review of this on my site, I would have more people who ‘back up my claims’ which add to the social-proof of the offering.
4. Find Beta Testers for Products or eBooks
If you don’t have a blog or any other form of ‘audience’ online, it can be hard to get in touch with people who can help you test certain programs or even eBooks. Thanks to Twitter, I even had a professional copywriter proof-read a 2,000 word blog post for me for nothing in return (I did offer).
5. Live News Tracking
For any of you that may have heard of me before, you’ll know that I spent the last 15 months living in Cape Town. Recently there was a fire in the city that covered Table Mountain, and it was literally a few hundred metres from where I used to live.
I was able to track updates about the fire and make sure that people were OK by watching all the reports on Twitter. Additionally, you could do the same for hurricanes, tornado’s or any other events that you would like to keep a close eye on.
6. Find Solutions to Problems
Going back to blog owners, how many of you have been frustrated by the inconsistency of Feedburner’s feed count reporting? I know some days I lose half my readers and then a few days later they all come back. Well, with Twitter it’s easy to find that you aren’t alone. People rarely blog about small problems, but they are happy to write about them in 140 Characters.
It’s not only Feedburner that you can find help with of course, you could ask your followers any number of questions, or just use their search feature to see if anyone has covered it before.
7. Competitions
I couldn’t write a post like this without highlighting the excellent work that @namecheap are doing with their Twitter profile. From March the 10th to March 24th, they asked a new question on Twitter every single hour, and the first three people to answer correctly received $9.69 added to their Namecheap account (enough for a .com domain).
This means that they got literally thousands of followers on their account, thousands of people sending them @ tweets from their profile, and even lots of blogs like this one covering their excellent use of the service.
What other uncommon uses can you think of for Twitter?
Thanks for the opportunity!
Can you change my twitter username at the beginning to “PluginID” – thank you!
@TwitTipsCenter
It’s all about connecting with others in a direct way, and building new relationships.
@crevier
No such thing as an uncommon use for Twitter.
@retta719
#6 is definitely very very true, people will skip right over something as a blog topic but blab all about it on Twitter. I know it’s true because I’m totally guilty of doing the same thing!
Great list
@JennEscalona
Very interesting! It always amazes me how creative people fathom new ways to use existing technology. I have had great success with #2 and am beginning to use my Twitter network as my first go-to source for product and service recommendations.
@ariherzog
Good point about testimonials–which you should capture and display as a favorite.
@tikitoons
I have found great uses that are common among many for twitter. Since owning two PODs (Product on Demand) shops online from cafepress and zazzle, it is a great way to promote a newly released item or design. I can upload the design to twitpic and get 100s of hits in minutes to view the design. This never happens once the design makes it’s way into the market, too often, get lost among the pack.
Another way of creating content about my online geek and techno interests to share with followers, I use the SHARED ITEMS tool from Google Reader. Activation of it’s feed sends each saved ‘note’ to twitter. The twit contains the shared item link and a brief title summary. It is my alternative to re-tweeting technology news from twitter feeds.
http://twitter.com/tikitoons
@stuartflatt
One of the better recent posts on twitip, love the namecheap idea. I guess that is the beauty of twitter, in a way, there are no boundaries on how you can connect, share and help.
@jaycaruso
We discussed ways that Twitter can be used by churches in the mission field to keep people up to date on what is happening, especially in countries where Internet access is either restricted or hard to come by.
http://churchtweets.com/2009/06/i-just-have-to-tweet-this/
@igomogul
#2 and #3 are very important to us because one of the most beneficial aspects of using Twitter, from a business perspective, is that it provides unfiltered, real-time feedback directly from customers and potential customers, and allows you to interact with them as well.
Greg @ iGoMogul
@derryo
Sports reporting is another handy use of Twitter, either to follow a game/event if away from TV or post updates on a game/event for benefit of others who don’t have access to a TV
@pixelitadesigns
I set up a secondary Twitter account to deliver server status updates to my few web hosting clients. The server this page resides on is not the same one where my clients are hosted (for obvious reasons). But they know to go here for an update.
http://www.pixelita.net
@WitLinx
We are currently testing using Twitter as an entry form to our assistant service. Imagine tweeting your favorite story, then a personal request like “@Witlinx What is the train schedule to the yankee stadium from CT, $2.”
@hectorhenry17
Interesante. Realy interesthing.
@judyrey
Good post.
I use Twitter for some of the ways mentioned. I’ve found it to be a good way to meet people and make friends, too. The help I’ve received from followers has been invaluable.
Plus, of course, it’s a lot of fun!
Thanks,
Judy Rey
@Wrender
The tagging issue makes me feel like google searches are really wothless and a waste of company time and money in some cases. I mean, if you have to “create” your reputation (good or bad), how much backbone can you really have?
@bloggingbistro
Glenn,
I really appreciate your suggestion about using Twitter for reputation management. I Googled my name and discovered I needed to update several social media profiles. After checking out how Google ranked my Twitter profiles, I ended up writing a 3-part series of blog posts about the dos and don’t of profile creation. Thanks for the kick in the pants — or shorts. It’s warm today in Seattle and I’m wearing shorts!
Laura
@PowerCV
New uses are emerging almost everyday with Twitter’s real-time, rapid communications ability that help to discover new like-minded people and build relationships.
@CarlaRose
I have looked for products on Twitter. I guess I wanted a more personal shopping experience with the ability to interact with whom I’m buying from.
@KriziaMissK
Yhis is an excellent overview of the many different ways of using a platform like Twitter to help build our brand!
Thanks for the lesson!
@parkercolorado
I have used the “live -real time news” a BUNCH of times in Colorado tracking winter storms from where my daughter is going to college to home, and traffic reports where my husband is driving.. I just text him if there is a jam on his route. How did I live before twitter??
@frugalgradcom
I have been bombarded with affiliate links for days. It is very boring on Twitter for a few first day because I didn’t get to follow people with real issues and real conversations. It doesn’t matter if I’m actually in the conversation. Sometime I just sit there for a few minutes watching. Things are getting better. I got to follow some real people.
@frugalgradcom
I have trouble feeding my blog post into my twitter account. Wonder if you can do an article on it. Thanks.
@innovate
My favorite is BakerTweet – a WiFi device connected to Twitter that lets people know when fresh muffins or croissants, etc. are just out of the oven.
http://bakertweet.com/
Braden (@innovate on Twitter)