How does Twitter work?

So just about everyone who knows I’m on Twitter and that we at THP are helping clients with social network, ask me the same questions….”How does Twitter work?” or “I don’t understand how it can apply to my business?” or “I tried it but all it is, is people telling other people what they ate for breakfast.”

So here’s a real world example of how Twitter works.  A couple of days ago we posted a social media release about the Virginia Education Wizard, a client of ours, and a new scholarship program it was announcing.  It looked like this on Twitter.

jonnew: Virginia Education Wizard offering scholarships. Register to be eligible at www.vawizard.org http://pitch.pe/10272

Remember Tweets can only be 140 characters and the final link in the Tweet is to the social media release we created using picth engine.  This was sent out to the 1,450 following me.

GinnyWiz is the Twitter persona for the Wizard.  She tweeted about the scholarships as well to the 270 people following her and to a link to news coverage updating traffic to the Wizard since its launch….

GinnyWiz: Scholarships now available for those who register on www.vawizard.org. The site has been pretty popular since launch. http://bit.ly/Na8iT

 These Tweets were seen by an educator in Charlottesville who Tweeted about the Wizard and asking other educators to try it……

hollydilatush: exploring https://www.vawizard.org career exploration tool (NEW!); interesting; potentially motivating and fun for many learners; try it?!

This Tweet was seen by an educator and blogger in California who has now included the Wizard on his list of “best websites…. 

http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/2009/05/01/virginia-education-wizard/

The Tweets were also found by a local educator and Twitterer in Richmond who recommended the Wizard to 800 key education influencers in the state. 

RVAfoodie: @GinnyWiz I sent your press release to over 800 GED/ESOL teacher/admins in VA and urged vawizard.org for “transitioning”. I’m at valrc.org

And that is how Twitter (and social networking) works.

Jon Newman

In 2002 Jon cofounded The Hodges Partnership and has helped to grow it into one of the country’s largest public relations firms (based on O’Dwyer’s annual rankings). Jon has taught communications as an adjunct professor at VCU, speaks regularly at conferences and meetings and blogs and tweets about public relations and marketing issues.

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