7:55 pm, February 17, 2009
HAVE you heard of Twitter yet? If you haven’t you will do very soon. It’s the new craze sweeping the web and even car manufacturers are getting involved.
So, what is it all about? And just how does it work?
Well, as you may have seen on this website, I’ve been dabbling in Twitter myself – scroll down a bit on the homepage and it’s there on the right.
From what I’ve learned so far it’s a way of telling people what you’re doing in 140 characters or less – sort of text message-sized chunks of information that tell your ‘followers’ what you’re up to.
If you’re into Facebook you’ll know all about the status update function. On the Book of Faces you get the chance to answer the question ‘James is…’ by filling in the blanks.
All your friends are then told what you’re doing. Some might find it interesting. Others might think you’re a loser – but then that’s the joys of communication in the 21st Century.
From what I can gather, Twitter is essentially an extended status update facility. Instead of friends on Facebook, on Twitter you have followers who get your updates in a live feed.
You can follow people too so when you log-in you can see their latest ‘Tweets’ – the posts that they make on Twitter.
It’s all a bit new to me at the moment, but I can see advantages for everyone – even car dealers. If your customers are following your dealership’s feed you could tell them about special offers, service deals or mention that reduced price on the used stock you need to shift. Manufacturers are already using it to their advantage.
Really, I just see it as a bit of fun. It’s quite addictive – especially if you get an app for your phone so you can update on the go.
Even celebrities are into it – famously Stephen Fry posted a ‘tweet’ when he was stuck in a lift in central London recently, and you can even keep up-to-date with Britney Spears if that takes your fancy on Twitter.
Check out my feed here – twitter.com/CarDealerEd – and start following me. You never know I might say something of interest at some point…
