For the past few months I have taken an active interest in Twitter, and I constantly swing back and forth from loving what it can do and what it’s becoming, to hating what it does and what it’s becoming. Yeah I know it’s confusing, so let me explain further.

For those of you who don’t know Twitter, and have no idea what a tweet is, let me explain the basics. Twitter is a micro blogging service, where you post entries up to 140 characters per post. These tiny blog posts are called tweets, and the web is exploding with tweets and people talking about tweeting on Twitter. It’s a powerful medium because it’s easy to get lots of people following you in a short period of time. I currently have 518 followers and have done very little to promote myself, so just imagine the audience reach of someone who invests a lot of time building their Twitter network.

Some basic user information; Twitter is fast becoming one of the largest social networking sites and with a very high adoption rate, it also has a very bad retention rate, which tells me people either get it or they don’t. Best way to really get to know what Twitter is all about is clicking the image above and open a free account.

Now that everyone has an idea what twitter is, let me explain my statement above. I love what it can do, short messages tell the world what you’re doing, what your business is doing, or you can connect via real time conversations with other twitter users. I love that it’s becoming an easy to use medium of communication between people, and since it has the 140 characters per post limit, it means people are forced to be succinct and to the point.

I also love the fact that it’s becoming a way to not only let people connect but organizations are learning to harness this medium to react and respond very quickly to their user base and customers. If you’re interested in seeing how one company has taken Twitter to the next level in their marketing and customer service then click here for a great article on what Zappos is doing, or better yet visit the Zappos.com Twitter page for yourself. 

Now for the things I hate about twitter! I often find trivial short posts that offer no value to anyone, reading tweets like “I just lost my keys”, “Getting ready to go to wal-mart”, and the endless spam of ancient quotes are just short bursts of my life I will never get back. I find this useless drivel a waste of space and it drives me nuts sometimes.

I also hate that twitter is becoming a huge spam machine for repetitive marketing slogans and calls to action, without any value. I chalk this spam chatter up to the price I pay to be connected via this great service. Sometimes it seems overwhelming and that no one is listening, but the truth is that more than 6 million people are out their connecting and when I remember that I fall in love with Twitter all over again.

I offer you this advice, if you decide to make Twitter a component in your internet marketing strategy, learn to use it in such a way as to add value to your organization and your customers. You will find it has great potential, and the whole point of using it as a marketing tool is to spread the love, not the hate! So good luck and don’t forget to follow me on at http://twitter.com/OMPundit

Sometime this week I will be posting about how to track the success of using Twitter, so check back for another Twitter post and all the details.

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