A beginner’s guide to Twitter for business

It will pay for businesses both big and small to have a good understanding of Twitter - here's a guide to the ‘next big thing’.

By Asavin Wattanajantra, 4 Feb 2009 at 12:17

gallery

In order to really enjoy the benefits of Twitter as a communication tool, you’ll have to put the effort in to tweet often with worthwhile things to say, otherwise you’ll run the risk of losing followers. It’s also good to be conversational in your tweets, which will again make sure that people know that there is a human behind the business account you are using.

It’s also a good idea to add value to your tweets – whether it’s a link to a blog about your company or a company announcement which you think your followers will find useful, it will give people a reason to read your tweets.

Useful names to add on Twitter

Here is a small list of some tech businesses and figures already twittering. (Although many famous names will claim to be official, be aware that sometimes this might not be the case.)

@itpro - IT PRO’s official news and features Twitter feed

@MSWindows - Where twitterers can give direct feedback about the Windows 7 beta

@Appleinc - The Apple Twitter feed

@Apple_news - The Apple news feed

@CiscoSystems - The Cisco Twitter feed

@Padmasree - Padmasree Warrior, the chief technology officer at Cisco

@DellOutlet - A Twitter feed for those after refurbished Dell computers and electronics

@mattcutts - Google engineer Matt Cutts, head of the webspam team at Google

@Enderle - Frequently quoted technology analyst Rob Enderle

@forrester - Technology and market research company Forrester Research

@Gartner_inc - Technology and research company Gartner

@bbctech - The BBC technology blog