TWITTER pt.2

LIMITATION AND THE BENEFITS

You use Twitter constantly for your business but you may not be aware that Twitter has some limitations that may affect your use. A lot of the limitations may not be any big deal but they are important to know.

Limitations

A limited number of followers

Once your Twitter account is following 2,000 other Twitter users, if you try to follow additional people, you will be limited by ratios that are specific to your account.  If you have that many followers (which many people do not), you will get a message from Twitter once you have reached that limit. Two thousand people is a high number for “regular folks.” You will receive notification that you have reached that limit and you will have to wait until you are given permission to go over that limit before you can follow any additional people. If you are connected to someone on Twitter and they are at their 2,000 follower limit, please don’t take it personally and unfollow them. They don’t really have any control over the situation. If you reach your Twitter limit and have other people with whom you wish to be connected, you need to look at your others and consider if you can do without following them. If you feel that you can, you can substitute the new followers for the ones that you already had.

Your following percentage is higher

Twitter allows you a slightly higher percentage of people whom you are allowed to follow than who are allowed to follow you. According to Twitter, the limit is not a set number. It is different for every person and it is based on the ratio of followers to following. Once you have hit the limit, an error message will appear in your browser. Once you have more followers, you will be able to follow additional people as well.

Daily following ability

You are only allowed to follow 1,000 people a day (this is pretty generous). You should be careful not to send tweets too frequently to the same followers, however, because you will hit the limit, which may lock your Twitter account for up to 24 hours. It is a good idea to follow people during less-popular hours (perhaps during non-business hours) in order to avoid your limit. You wouldn’t want your limit to prevent you from tweeting some really important content.

Daily tweet limit

Your daily tweet limit is 1,000. Of course, that is pretty generous. Depending on how actively you tweet, you will most likely not get close to the limit of 1,000 tweets a day.

Hourly tweets

If you divide 1,000 tweets in a 24-hour period by 24, you can do 41 tweets in an hour. What is the chance that  you will exceed that in any given hour during business (or even during your personal time)? You also have a limit of 250 direct messages a day.

BENEFITS

A Powerful Tool for Obtaining Information / news

 Twitter users often link to useful sites or articles and can be a source of scoops and alternative news. This is very useful for active social news participants as they can subscribe to Twitter feeds for specific websites/conferences, which allows them to receive and view content quickly.Twitter can be quite an effective search tool for researching any kind of information. The results can complement other methods or sources of information. Twitter has a wide range of users, who constantly update Twitter with new information on different niches.

Marketing Opportunities.

 Twitter can be used in promoting your products and services. It is a cost effective method to increase awareness about your products or services. You can use it to inform customers about any new announcement or special offers. Twitter offers all the advantages of traditional text message marketing and more. It can prove to be a useful tool for conducting market research by better understanding of potential or existing customers.

Make new friends

 Twitter has a built-in function for you to befriend and track the messages of other users. This is a simple way for you connect with like minded people outside of your usual circle. A Twitter association can be developed into a long term acquaintance.

In short, Twitter allows you to monitor how influencers think or feel, you can also get into their attention zone via active networking. Twitter is an excellent social media tool for business. It is important to be aware of what it can do for you and what it can’t do. It works most effectively one on one and is a tool that is tailor made for customization. Twitter is constantly striving to meet the needs of its users and feedback is taken very seriously and the suggestions that are communicated are implemented to a great extent. The tweets always cater to the individual. The chances are great that you will not go anywhere near the limits that have been discussed here. However, it is very important to be aware of the rules that Twitter has established so that you can use it in the most effective way for your business

GETTING STARTED ON TWITTER

Here are some easy steps to get started on Twitter

1. Go to http://www.twitter.com

2. Sign up: Name, Email, Password (change password periodically for security)

3. Pick your username: Short & Memorable 

4. Set up your profile (Twitter will give you a page to do that after signing up), or simply go to http://www.twitter.com/yourhandle at any time. You have a “home page”, which shows all your friends’ Tweets, and a “Profile” page for all your Tweets.

5. Upload a picture. I learned in my first week on Twitter that if you don’t have a real picture, people question your sincerity and committment.

6. Complete your bio. THE MOST IMPORTANT THING. The bio provides all people know about you on Twitter before they get to know you.  The bio tells people WHY you are on Twitter, that is WHAT you are planning to Tweet about. It  communicates your brand on Twitter. Think well about who you want to be on Twitter and that this creates a permanent record in your history.

7. Find people to follow. To start, ask your friends or colleagues for their Twitter handles so that you can practice; also follow news sources. While all Tweets can be found on Google, if you start a message with @, e.g. @nathomson, the messsage goes (mostly) only to that person. They know you are directly addressing them. If you have a bio, other people will find you and follow you but there are many tools out there to find people with similar interests to yours; this blog lists some.

But, think quality not quantity. You don’t need to follow everybody who follows you, but most people will tell you that initially they did follow most people who followed them to get started. Just remember, once you have hundreds of followers, administration is a lot of work, so think ahead.

GETTING MORE INFO ABOUT TWITTER?

Its simple, get on the internet and you get tons of information about twitter. basically, to get more information about twitter is that by experiencing on using twitter itself.