by Mike Hallaron
Hallaron Media, Houston, Texas

Believe it or not, there are still many branding managers, product managers, business owners, and even marketers sitting on the fence on whether to use Twitter. “Why do I need to use Twitter?” The better question is “How will using Twitter expand my brand and enhance my marketing strategy?” Does your company have a social media strategy in place and have you decided how and why to use social platforms in the first place? If not, revisit your marketing plan and check your calendar. It is 2012 and social media has rocked the business world. You must integrate social into your marketing plan.

The Twitter world is a community with its own language. As a result, you may encounter a variety of terms you may not yet be familiar with, as some of these terms were coined by the users themselves. Cool, huh?

What is a Tweet, anyway?

Any post on Twitter is considered a Tweet, whether a post, reply, link, or a location-update (more on this later). Tweets have a maximum of 140 characters (due to SMS/mobile constraints) and are typically shown along with the username of the individual who wrote it.

by Mike Hallaron
Hallaron Public Relations

I was emailing a client this morning and educating her about tweeting and how to better use her company’s Twitter account for favorable marketing results. In addition to having her tweets crawled by Google and building search engine ranking, I explained she can attract more followers by posting news, briefs, comments.. even retweeting other tweets from those she follows.

By now most people know that Twitter has made an impact on the business world, even if they aren’t yet sure how to use it. Every week we get questions whether clients should be engaging prospects and customers on Twitter. The answer is “yes” if you willing to invest some time and learn how to best use it. One of the most interesting aspects of Twitter is its search function.