Twitter is viewed by the management of many companies as a corporate nightmare – even more involving and demanding that Facebook, Twitter sends short, sharp updates from potentially thousands of followers, right to your desktop, and with a 140 character limit, you can quickly reply. However, there are actually a number of jobs in which you could be encouraged to use Twitter, precisely because of its pervading nature.
If you work in any sort of events management or promotion role then Twitter could be one of your most important work resources. You can get the word out to the people who are following you about an upcoming event, plus reach the people searching Twitter for keywords which interest them.
2 – Journalism
Twitter can be used as a journalism medium because the millions of users can report news and events where they are eye witnesses, which would take official news sources hours to confirm and report – and that’s if anyone is watching their particular channel, or reading their particular paper.
Journalists can also use Twitter themselves:
* To discover breaking news. Since Twitter is so quick and easy to use, many people will post their discoveries on the micro blogging site before posting it to their complete blog, and sometimes will bypass their blog all together. As a result, when there is a natural disaster, political news or a new technology release, Twitter is a great way for journalists to find out about it first. For example, during the March earthquakes in China and Japan, Twitter users beat government agencies and leading news organisations to report, and when a journalist can find out about new technology before everyone else, they have the opportunity to submit an exclusive story to the medium of their choice.
* Interviews. Journalists can also use their Twitter contacts to gather potential questions for an upcoming interview, making sure that they ask the questions their readers want answered. Twitter can also be used as the interview platform itself, by sending out requests for information and receiving Tweets back saves a journalist hours of time on the phone, returning messages and writing up notes.
* Feedback. If you have Twitter followers who also regularly read your articles or posts, then you can also receive feedback on this work, pick up misspelled words or broken links.
* Promote your work. Journalists can also use Twitter to post links to their online articles, just make sure that you are not posting more links to your own work than you are posting about advice or other interesting links because when a Twitter user is so obviously about self promotion, people will stop following.
3 – Bloggers
Bloggers are another profession who can get away with using Twitter for work, and make themselves more productive and successful because of it. Not only do most bloggers work for themselves in a freelance capacity and so don’t have to worry about the boss looking over their shoulder, they can also use Twitter to raise awareness about their posts.
Twitter is after all a micro blogging site and if you want to increase the number of readers your blog has or inspire some comments on your post, use Twitter to get that attention. You can post links to other blogs or articles which interest you and have to do with your blog topic and will therefore appeal to your readers. You can also post links and tag lines for blog posts you have written to ster traffic to your site.
4 – Help desk
Twitter can be used as an instant help desk for just about any profession, and anyone sitting at their desk wondering how to do something, or fix something else. More and more businesses are setting up a Twitter account to enhance their customer service, and this means being on hand to answer Tweets about their product or service. Therefore, you can use Twitter at work if you are looking for help or an answer, or you can set up a help desk for your business and be online to help your Tweeps with their questions.
You can also use Twitter at work to seek advice and feedback on your work. For example, if you are looking for feedback on a design you’ve created, a website you’ve built or a draft of an article you’re writing, you could send a few emails to your contact, but instead of bothering them by clogging their inbox all the time, you can send out a Tweet and your followers decide if they want to reply or not.
5 – On the road
Most of us have smart phones which can connect to the internet, and if your phone didn’t come with the Twitter app, you can usually download it for free. This means that if you work out on the road, as a taxi driver, a truck driver or a courier for example, then you can use Twitter to follow the conditions of the road, and even check out where the police are lying in wait by following @Pigspotter.
Alban has written several articles on new technologies including Tweeter, social media and more. Alban also contribute to a home loan comparison website, Home Loan Finder.
