If you haven't tried the social networking service called Twitter then I suggest you do. It can be addictive in a useless way or it can be productive depending on who you talk to. Twitter is a web based service that allows you to stay in touch and keep up with your friends, colleagues, business contacts etc. It's not just limited to the web, you can use your mobile phone to access your Twitter and to Twitter with everyone. As well, there is Twitterrific a free Mac desktop application from the Iconfactory that let's you Twitter. And if that's not enough for you there's Twittervision which allows you to view global perspective in normal or 3D view what people are Twittering about.
I've just started Twittering a few months ago and I have to admit I had no idea of what use it would have. But after trying it out a little I can see some value to Twittering beyond just keeping in touch with your friends. I've been using it mostly for fun but I may try setting up a Twitter channel for a project and see how it goes.
Recently I pinged my LinkedIn network from some thoughts on Twitter. One response from Aimee Evans was particularly interesting from the business perspective.
"I love Twitter and have an account set up under our company name. Not only does it give us credibility in the space (we do work in Web 2.0 and social media), it's also great for SEO and PR (the search engines index tweets quickly). When I have a particularly good post on our corporate blog, I'll twitter and include the link. I've also set up an active page on MySpace, a social network on Ning, a del.icio.us page and (currently unused) accounts on YouTube and some other sites.Currently, I consider these best for our recruiting efforts, and posts on the MySpace blog tend to be more about available positions and corporate culture than anything else. But I think these tools are very useful for both SEO and PR. (I'm not suggesting that we "leverage" social networking exclusively for SEO, but it's a nice benefit.)
I really believe the social web is a big part of our industry's future, so I'm pretty dedicated to staying ahead of the curve on it -- and doing it right. Adhering to best practices on these sites is critical; you really have to join the community and be 100% transparent about why you're there to make it work."
I'll keep updating this space with my thoughts as my trial of Twitter continues.
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