9 Unique Ways to Use Twitter
Twitter is quickly permeating everyone’s online psyche in a variety of ways. I’m amazed myself sometimes in the new ways I’m able to use Twitter to grow my customer base, disseminate my knowledge, and maybe occasionally provide a laugh or two for my followers.
It got me to wondering, what are some of the more interesting and/or useful ways someone could leverage Twitter outside the traditional crowdsourcing (asking a large group of people for input on an idea or problem) or link sharing activities in which I participate every day? After thinking about it a bit, here are 9 unique ways you can use Twitter that you may have never thought of:
- Use it as a source of news for your group or organization - Belong to a chamber? Want to get the word out for a town event? Rotary sponsoring a fundraiser? Twitter might be a great platform for you. If it’s something that has the potential to draw a lot of people, Twitter is a great medium for disseminating the information. We’re just getting started on the Matawan-Aberdeen Chamber of Commerce (@macocnj). Follow us!
- Use it as a source of news for your favorite sports player – Derek Jeter, a shortstop for the Yankees baseball team, was approaching a new team record for number of hits. A colleague of mine who’s a big Derek Jeter fan wanted to be able to give his friends up-to-date information on when Derek Jeter was batting, and wanted to be able to provide instant news to a bunch of people whenever Jeter was at bat and could potentially beat the record. The platform he chose? Twitter. Why? Because posting 1 140-character tweet was a lot easier than calling 40 of his friends. Follow him @jeteralert.
- Use it for your little league sports team – Have your players all join twitter and follow your team and each other. Announce scores, field playability, and upcoming events.
- Take questions in class - Monica Rankin, professor at the University of Texas at Dallas in the History department, has her students tweet during class using a hash tag (e.g. #somekeyword) to organize the information. At the end of class, she projects what she’s gathered on screen for further discussion. She says it’s increased student participation…who can argue with that?
- Meal Deals – Offer follower-only deals for your restaurant. Use a keyword only your followers will be able to see. Announce special events — bands, dances, happy hour, etc. – to a whole crowd of people that may never have known you offered the stuff before.
- Dispatcher – Got a bunch of people on the road? Need a way to send quick messages on their company cell phones? Have them all create twitter accounts for your business and then follow a dispatcher account. Activate mobile messages on work-related accounts. Viola. Any messages you send as the dispatcher get globally received by all the people following you, and you can still send them direct messages to boot (note that the dispatcher account still goes into the public timeline, so you shouldn’t be sending any confidential tweets).
- Sweet Tweets – How about this: a truck in New York City from which you can buy sweet treats? That’s what the Treats Truck is for! They keep a schedule of where they’ll be, but what would you do if the schedule changed? How would you find them? Follow them on Twitter (@TheTreatsTruck) and you’ll get regular updates of where they are!
- Tweet as a Character - Obsessed over a comic? Love a movie? Wish you were the terminator? Or how about Superman? You can quickly gain a following of people looking to be entertained simply by tweeting as you’d imagine that persona to tweet. Does your business have a mascot? Tweeting as the mascot might provide people entertainment and garner interest in your brand.
- Tweet just to be a pain in someone else’s neck – A friend tweets regularly as himself on Twitter. On occasion, he will make comments that we’ll all tease him for later. One person has taken it upon himself to create a Twitter account simply to respond to the tweets my friends make. A public sparring match in 140 characters or less. Can’t beat that entertainment value.
Do you have any unique ways you’d like to share? Please comment below!
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