To Tweet or not to Tweet?

November 4, 2011 by Frank Peditto

I never imagined writing a blog post on whether or not to ‘tweet’, but, as Twitter continues to grow, it’s a question more and more individuals and businesses alike are asking themselves. It’s hard to believe that Twitter, which now reports over 100 million active users and more than 350 billion tweets per day, launched just over five years ago.

If you follow us (@ReloTrans) on Twitter you will see that we have about 150 followers, which in the Twitter universe is extremely low. But, our numbers continue to grow, so we remain optimistic of its potential long-term value both in terms of brand exposure and also potentially customer service. After all, according to Pew Internet Research, 13% of online adults are using Twitter – a percentage that rose 5% from only 8% in just six months. And, during that same time period, use of Twitter amongst adults 25-34 more than doubled from 7% to 19% and it rose from 8% to 14% with adults 35-44.

While I was, like many, skeptical of this online medium at first, a marketing friend of mine encouraged me to create a Twitter account for my company. As first, I protested saying that I didn’t have the time or knowledge to tweet each day and also that our industry wasn’t really engaged in social media. After a lot of additional discussion, I finally gave in and ReloTrans was on Twitter. As I began I was tweeting once a day or maybe twice and I maintained a laser focus on what I felt would be resources or articles auto transportation specialists would find relevant. After scouring the Internet regularly, I realized that there wasn’t that much regular news, so I began expanding my daily reads to include information about travel and transportation at large and then also the larger market of relocation and human resources. Today, I begin each weekday morning with a cup of coffee and a scan of several leading online sites that provide free content. When I find something relevant to the industry, managers, small business executives, or the community at large, I tweet it. It also educates me as I read each of the articles prior to posting. And, in addition to sharing it on Twitter, it feeds through to my personal LinkedIn account and it could feed automatically to our corporate Facebook page as well.

What has been most surprising to me is how easy it is. We use a free tool to schedule and send messages and through that tool, Hootsuite, I can schedule and post to Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. And, through sites like Mashable, I can stay on top of the current trends and continue my education about the world of Twitter.

While we haven’t been able to directly link any new business to using Twitter, I have found it to be a valuable tool, not only to serve as a resource to our industry, but also an internal resource as I have shared many of the articles I found while looking for content for our Twitter account with our internal team.

Looking to get started on Twitter, check out the Twitter blog and also the Mashable how to guide.