But, is Twitter the driver for all applications?

I say No. For the simple reason that Twitter has its own vocabulary and, even though there are millions of users, not everyone will be familiar with it. You could be reducing your impact by continuing to use it. To quote Lee Iocacca, “Talk to people in their own language. If you do it well, they’ll say, ‘God, he said exactly what I was thinking.  And when they begin to respect you, they’ll follow you to the death.”

And this is really what you want from your social media activity. You want a loyal tribe;  a tribe that consumes your products and services. You certainly don’t want to be expending effort on creating tribes on the different platforms to find that people hide you because of your constant twittering.

If Twitter is a receiver stream, what are the driver streams?

And, these are ever changing and certainly will change in how people rank their usefulness to them.  For all the sites where you are able to create material whether that’s a status update, a blog post, new video or podcast, these are the driver streams. And, it is from these streams that you turn on the link to Twitter but not in reverse!

The upshot is that people will be consuming your material in an ‘original’ form and in a way they understand.

You are then able to decide how much more you want to do on Twitter in terms of original postings.  But then it’s the community aspect to participate in and that doesn’t need to be broadcast around the internet.  As Lee Iococca says, “and, when they begin to respect you, they’ll follow you to death”

Let me know whether this struck a chord with you. Do you have your twitter posts streaming into lots of different sites? How has that worked for you?

Twitter is such a simple concept but, somehow the application can be more complex. One of the reasons may be that there are no rules. It’s open to interrogation and that’s what makes it what it is.

Twitter is still evolving. The Twitter I joined in July 2008 is completely different to October and that is completely different to now…and, it’s continuing to change.

If you want to use Twitter to increase your presence and reach, then I suggest adopting a mix of tweets comprising of:

· Your own content
Whether this is based on your own insights, blogs, white papers articles, you share with others

· Comment upon published content
Share what you find interesting and that you consider will add value to your followers. Give you comments rather than just the title and the link

· RT content received
The ReTweet is your way of complimenting the person that their content is of value. It indicates to them that what they’ve offered is of value. (This is not to be confused with being asked to RT)

· Replying to people (@ )
This is in response to the content of their tweet. This is one of the most powerful ways to foster loyalty amongst your followers

Consider for a moment, how much of each do you do? And what happens to your tweets. This dies depend upon your market and how much you have to say.

Just responding to tweets is easy and great for those who received a reply but can be pretty boring for everyone else unless each tweet is self explanatory.

Two suggestions

1. Grow advocates as followers

2. Grow your reach and tribe through your content and RTs

Advocates tend to be people who know you whether that is as a client, supplier, receiver of information and testimonials

Once you have people who RT your material, then your reach and tribe will grow. And, continue to grow providing you tweet material of value and interest.