Twitter: The Innovation Business Needed, Part Two

Part 2 of a 5-part series

Last post, I talked about how Twitter has evolved from a fun application used to interact with friends to a social media phenomenon that has transformed B2B and B2C communication. Whether it's to promote a new product, reveal a new idea in an enlightening way or respond and interact with consumers, 93 percent of marketers are now inhibiting Twitter for a multitude of reasons. I highlighted three reasons why I use Twitter the most often and why marketers should too in part one. Now, I will explain why 140 characters worth of information has never been bigger.

A giant group text message with friends, family, acquaintances, colleagues, small businesses, political figures, celebrities, sports teams, professional athletes, major corporations, and so much more, all sharing one thing in common: they are communicating their most important words, thoughts and information, to us. If we go online or open up the application on our phones and begin writing a tweet, it has to be important, right? Whether it's a thought, joke, statistic, quote or a link, it has significance because we took the time to write and share it with the world.

Have you ever looked at Twitter like this? Isn't that why we like it so much? We feel connected to parts of the world we could never feel connected to otherwise. We feel heard because our messages have the potential to be seen by thousands, even millions of people.

But why is this important for business? Three reasons:

• It allows you to know your audience. When you look through individual timelines of consumers, clientele and other business, you can often feel like you know the user without ever meeting or interacting with them. For a marketer, this is like a sixth sense. Consumers and businesses are giving you an insight into their thoughts and feelings which means you have an advantage when it comes time to form messages, goals, objectives and content. 

• We are now a world that relates easier to short-and-sweet messages rather than long, in-depth conversation. Have you ever seen a catchy tweet by a big brand? Below reveals a great example of a tweet made by DiGiorno Pizza during the 2014 Super Bowl that engaged thousands of fans because of their ability to relate and process the information in an easy way.  

• Being limited to 140 characters of information forces you to form meaningful messages. Because brands are limited in their content, their two-way communication must be powerful and summarized into short phrases. If consumers cannot relate or feel impacted by the messages revealed through Twitter, they will lose interest. Intrigue your audience with appealing content they can relate to and you'll begin to see a return on investment through responses, retweets, favorites and word-of-mouth. 

Part three will highlight the reasons why Twitter's clear and concise interface with minimized distractions help consumers retain the most important information and why this is useful for businesses. Stay tuned.   

Part One
Part Two