Business

Boosting businesses through Twitter
by Zuzana Zelenakova

After Twitter has become such a global phenomenon even businesses began to take advantage of it. Despite the fact that Twitter was originally developed for communication among individuals these days numerous companies and organizations use its services. There are several ways how they do it. Some companies use the platform as a marketing or public relations tool. Or they use it to communicate internally about different projects they are working on. However, in this case there is no security guarantee. Companies also let their employees tweet. This way the employees create certain image of themselves and subsequently of their employer too. And then, there are we may say pro! fessional tweeters that are actually hired by big businesses to market them. Alecia Dantico is one of these people. Although she is interacting with great amount of people nobody knows whether she is male or female, young or old. "My day starts on Twitter and it doesn't really end," Dantico says. "It's driving my family crazy, but that's OK." Coca Cola´s social media director at Atlanta Adam Brown explains why the company finds social media so attractive: "Having the world's most-recognized brand, we feel like there's an obligation or a responsibility when people are talking about us, we have a duty to respond". Well, after all it is free advertising. Dantico for example works for Best Buy Co. Inc. and is working on a doctorate in communications, focusing on building brand identity in online communities. However, she never urges her followers directly to buy products, it is much more unobtrusive and subtle than that. "Social media is all about being social," says Nora ! Ganim Barnes, a marketing professor at the University of Massa! chusetts Dartmouth. "It's not called selling media. The biggest mistake companies make is using social media to hawk products. It's a turnoff."

related story (sgx15285): http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090902/ap_on_re_us/us_fea_lifes...

by Zuzana Zelenakova for PocketNews (http://pocketnews.tv)

PocketNews is a new real-time news broadcaster delivering the latest and hottest news right to your pocket ! With global clients who want to be kept up to date, PocketNews is eve! ryone's way of keeping in touch with the World.

posted by Blog TechSource @ 1:29 PM