Authored by Jeremy Siek in Social Networking 
Published on 12-14-2008

Twitter is fast becoming a very popular technology among teen and college aged users for social networking. Twitter is a tool that can be used to solve many personal and business problems. Remember that it is a mass communication technology that is easy to use. Our personal and business lives rely on communication, so if there is an opportunity to get your personal message to friends and family and your business message to existing and potential clients in an easy way, such an opportunity should be taken advantage of and looked at closely.

Very little technical knowledge is needed to use Twitter, and you don’t have to have a website or a blog. This is a different social networking than Facebook or MySpace.

If you use Twitter, you will become good at writing headlines. The tweets or messages are usually about a sentence in length. This includes any links that you may want to include. You can post a maximum of 140 characters. This is why cell phones are used for Twitter and even the busiest users can find the time to send quick updates during activities.

Twitter can be an excellent business tool. Not only can co-workers keep in contact regarding the status of projects or even a warning that a coworker is late, but on their way. Many companies are finding that email can actually waste employee’s time. Because of the limited character length of the tweets, the message can be broadcast without a lengthy explanation.

Twitter is a great marketing tool. Broadcast a message about your product or services. One good reason that Twitter is great for marketing is that people subscribe to your Twitter feed. This means that you have already found people that have an interest in what your business offers. Remember that there are people that don’t want to read a big sales page, and a Twitter message is a quick way for them to hear about what you are selling.

Personal life can gain the same benefits with Twitter. Parents and kids can keep in touch with updates regarding their day without interrupting their other activities.

Coordinating larger family events can be made much easier with Twitter. Everything from planning to last minute updates can be sent to all those concerned.

Even reminders to take medication, or check in on a loved one can be sent with Twitter which could make big difference to someones health.

We live in a fast paced world. We need to stay connected to our customers and family. We have phones, voicemail and email. People are getting into the habit of ignoring voice messages or email. Twitter is very useful in this regard because the sentence length message is broadcast and shows up on the cell phone, or browser. It can’t be ignored like a newspaper headline can’t be ignored. If you see it, you have to read it, and then move on.

It is free to sign up and use Twitter. Get connected with your family and business acquaintances by getting them to sign up and start using this new technology. This promises to be as useful as the phone and email.