Tweeting, I get it, it’s a form of social media and a marketing tool. I have friends tweeting, I have family tweeting, companies are tweeting, heck Justin Bieber has the highest number of followers who want to know what he is doing with his life. Therefore, if I know so many people tweeting, or retweeting, maybe I should be tweeting. Maybe everyone has something important to say and I should share what I have to say with tweets. Apparently, when you tweet as a person is different from how you tweet when you are representing a company.
According to the article “10 Things you should Tweet,” by Jon Gelberg, companies need to follow business etiquette when they tweet. Mr. Gelberg gives his top ten suggestions, but his suggestions raise questions for me. For instance, when you are tweeting for a company, how do you decide what information your followers are interested to know or learn? If you call the person from the company a tweeter, what do you call its followers? Do you call them followers, tweeters, or tweetetts? How does one keep the tweets interesting enough to for your followers when each tweet can only be up to 140 characters? Do you tweet continued on next tweet? What if I wanted to add a link or photographs? How easy would it be to add a link? Would you have to set up a special link to see the photographs?
I understand the power of marketing, the more people who you can reach out to the more exposure your product or company will touch. So in essence, by using tweets one increases their exposure to the public, market share, increased product knowledge and sales. All great perks for the company but how about for followers? In addition, one must assume that there can be social responsibilities, concern for goodwill and legal implications with this form of medium just as there is with newspaper, radio or television. Which actually raises another question for me, how much does a follower believe about a tweet from a company? Are tweets
facts or do we need to investigate the information that has been tweeted?
If anyone can help with my questions, great. Then maybe I can decided if I would actually like to tweet or be a follower. One thing is certain, I have a starting point if I would ever like to tweet for a company, thanks to this business communication class and the “10 Things You Should Tweet” (Gelberg, 2012).
Gelberg, J. (2012, June 6). 10 Things You Should Tweet. Retrieved 01 22, 2013, from Inc.com: http://www.inc.com/jon-gelberg/10-things-you-should-tweet.html
mches02 