PRSA Colorado Newsline

PRSA Colorado Board Member Bill Green provides a Twitter 101 overview.

It started as something exotic, something fringe, something for the geeks who walk among us persuasion to tell friends where they were, what they were doing, what they found interesting. Just like most modern communications technology that came from the geek fringe – like the Web, e-mail, chat, text messaging – Twitter became mainstream. One thing about Twitter that makes it simultaneously amazing and annoying is that no one really knows what to do with it – and that includes public relations practitioners – which makes it a continually evolving tool.

Almost everyone’s first post on Twitter reads the same: “Hello world, I’m on Twitter. Now what?” You only get 140 characters (including spaces), so it shouldn’t be that hard, but realizing that you are talking to the world and that you have to choose your words carefully seems to make it daunting.

Before we delve into Twitter 101, let’s lay down a basic framework for understanding. Twitter is one of many conversational media tools. If you, your client or your brand is not prepared to join in the conversation with your friends and constituents, you should not be on Twitter.

“Wait, did he just ask whether my brand is ready to have a conversation?” Why yes, I did. One of the major shifts of conversational media is that people can interact with brands just like a person, and they expect to! When you are on Twitter under a company’s name, whether yours or a client’s, that persona — what you say, how you say it and how you interact with others — becomes the public face of the brand.

So with that, a few answers to questions everyone has:
Continue reading Twitter 101: Getting Started on the World’s Most Pervasive Microblogging Platform