Category: Twitter

Twitter: business tool or business fool?

12-Nov-09 12:38

Twitter's everywhere at the moment. You can't open a newspaper, listen to the radio or turn on the TV without some clever clogs banging on about the cool kid of social media. Even celebrities like Stephen Fry, Jamie Oliver and Katie Price are in on the action.

But, when it comes to Twitter as a business tool, opinions are divided. In today's Times, a letter was published from Paul Stallard of Berkeley PR - Ascent PR's sister company, defending Twitter's use as an effective business tool and platform for succinct communication.

The sceptics among us would no doubt argue that allowing employees access to such social media sites is asking for trouble - namely in the form of reduced productivity and poorly judged ‘Tweets'. I mean the last thing any business wants is an employee tweeting excessively about the previous night's drunken antics or moaning about their workload and bringing shame on the corporate image.

But managed in the right way, Twitter can open many doors and provide an engaging and interactive face for a business, promoting better customer perception and service. Equally, with online media expanding at a rate of knots, now's the time to embrace online PR and the opportunity to raise your business profile, within Twitter's thriving journalist community alone, is vast.

To make sure your business doesn't get left behind, jump on the Twitter band wagon - drag your employees along with you, set some objectives and guidelines, and enjoy the ride!

 

 

Beth