Micro-Blogging for Business

As more and more people flock to these strangely addictive platforms, businesses are looking for ways in which they can participate, as well. Clearly, the most obvious opportunity for micro-blogging in business is public relations, but I’ll be offering up a few other applications as well.

1. Public Relations

The list of PR applications in micro-blogging is growing every day as more and more organizations are looking for creative ways to engage their target markets. The easiest way to utilize micro-blogging for public relations is to simply sign up and start having conversations.
Add people that are most likely interested with what you offer to your network and reply to their post when its appropriate.

This is also a great way to respond to negative press and defend your brand. Take advantage of the personalized nature of micro-blogs to present a genuine defense and reinforce your organizations sincerity.

Another way you might consider connecting with your customers is by setting up a micro-blog for customer support. Use it to announce service interruptions, encourage followers to report bugs, and post status updates.

2. Promotions

Another micro-blogging application that many e-commerce businesses have already taken up is promotional offerings. Amazon, Dell and Woot are just a few organizations already in the mix. These companies use micro-blogs to post special deals for their followers and inform them of time-sensitive sales.

3. Product Announcements

Similarly, you could use micro-blogging to provide your followers with product announcements, updates, and status reports. WordPress uses Twitter to announce updates of their software, while Twitterific includes outage reports, tips, and tricks in addition to product announcements.

4. Networking

For the same reasons that micro-blogging is perfect for public relations, it is also a perfect networking tool. This is a great way to find potential employees, contractors, and of course, prospective clients and customers.

5. Internal Affairs

Why not use micro-blogging internally? Not only can you strengthen employee-management relationships, but micro-blogging can be used for organizational purposes as well. Try setting up a micro-blog for project members to arrange meetings, post status updates, or inform other members about project specifics or ToDo items.

You could also utilize micro-blogging for time management purposes. Encourage employees to record their progress both to keep others up to date and to ensure productivity.

~ source: meta spring