Sharisax Is Out There
Join me on a journey down the Social Media Revolutionary Road
Twitter opens new world for SFSU student-mom
Twitter will be playing a larger role in our lives
Today’s post is a guest article from Shijia Yu, a 35-year-old mom in my Business Communication class at San Francisco State. Shijia is married, has a four-year-old daughter and lots of housework so her computer time was quite limited until she got the assignment to study Twitter for Business:
None of my friends and family members use Twitter and I didn’t really know anything about it. All I really did was save family pictures on MySpace. As soon as I started to study about Twitter, it seemed to be constantly in the news with CNN reports about the Iran situation.
TWITTER FOR BUSINESS by Shijia Yu
More People Involved: Twitter has been wildly recognized since February 2009. It’s free, easy to use, and fast. People started to realize that it is the fastest source for breaking news. It attracts people from all over the world and all of the ethnic groups from the poor to the rich. Interestingly, more women currently Tweet than men.
For Business: Some stories say that it’s very good for small and medium businesses. For example, a restaurant promotes its daily special through Twitter. Also, when they deliver their food to customers, they use Twitter to report the delivery time, so customers can be ready to come down stairs to pick up food outside their buildings. Another story described how Big Brands are offering coupons on Twitter.
Twitter appears to be more business-like than the blogosphere. Companies can get instant and raw feedback from their customers, which helps both in product development and customer service. By monitoring complaints on Twitter, companies can resolve problems.
Attitude toward Twitter: Although older people typically know less about the Internet than the younger generation, most people on Twitter are middle-aged. You don’t have to know a lot of technology to use it. It has become so popular that many people use it for news as well as chatting and business.
There are those, however, who say that Twitter is a Waste of Time because “it’s impossible to read thousands of messages which are constantly being updated.” Statistics show that 60% of new visitors don’t come back. On the other side, some people say that Twitter is a great tool to find experts to solve problems. It all depends on how you use it. I’ve found a lot of valuable, helpful, interesting messages on online Tweets.
Tricks to Using Twitter: If you want to do business on Twitter, don’t make your message too business-like. Grab people’s attention with interesting Tweets. If you want Twitter to work for you and your business, you have to increase your followers — and you can do this by following people with lots of followers themselves. People with lots of followers usually collect the followers because their Tweets are interesting and entertaining.
Finally, if you want to meet people during real time, go to Twitter during weekends and after 8 p.m when most people are on.
Note: Shijia is from Shanghai where many of her friends join online communities to have fun and seek useful information. Now they’ll all have to get on Twitter to find Shijia.
Next post: Les and Shari’s Facebook Page for Performance Social Media is up and running.
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Jul 15, 200910:38 am
Ok. So I swore not to get a Twitter. When I first heard about it, I thought it was ridiculous and just another site you NEEDED to belong to in order to maintain social status. But last night in Bus 360, it really dawned on me that as graduating college students we NEED to know how to operate all these sites. We are the future of the business world and will be expected to know how to function with all these aspects in our careers. After reading this article I’m beginning to understand how these social media sites are the platform for new businesses and great for marketing and getting your name out there. So thanks Shari for the insight on it! 
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Jul 14, 200911:18 pm
I am a facebook daily-user, and I’ve never use Twitter before. However, I think Twitter is a great platform for people sharing first-hand information in world-wide. I also agree with Fikreslassie Tesfa on the comment that one nice thing about Twitter is its “limited text” rule. I can visualize people sitting behind their computer and brain-storming for hours to choose the words they are going to use
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Jul 14, 200911:09 pm
Some of my friends have been familiar and using twitter, but not me since I am not tech savvy. However, It seems interesting and easy to use both from laptop and mobile. Business tools are changing rapidly, really.
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Jul 13, 20099:54 pm
i did not know about twitter until today. All l use on the internet is e-mail and MSN. Now, I think I’ve found another useful tool.
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Jul 10, 20099:49 pm
Twitter has been useful for me to contact classmates and instructors, I was just reminded that to be more effective I need to have more followers therefore I need to follow lots people to achieve that goal. For example, when I watch the news on the crisis in Iran, CNN reads people’s blogs live on the news about the insights that are happening i real time. People will post a blog with RT. RT- REAL TIME, is being used more in peoples blog, Its all about right here and right NOW! I hope to explore the advantages of Twitter for its a very popular tool among successful people and organization.
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Jul 10, 20099:46 pm
I had Twitter before but never used it.Not that i did not have the chance but because i had little information about it. On Shija’s post she enlighted me about a lot of benefit i can receive and because of this, my perspective of social media has expanded.
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Jul 10, 20095:41 pm
After doing some research, it really seems like not enough people give Twitter credit. The site design makes it seem very useless and simple. Shija is right, it does have a lot to offer. Twitter is on fire right now. You literally can’t turn one circle without seeing it.
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Jul 10, 200910:41 am
I am new to Twitter and was wondering what it is all about. Thanks to student mom Shijia’s blog, I’ve learned how to use Twiiter and its features. I will use twitter to increase my social networking by following other people which they will be following me later on. This probably also improves my social networking skill of which i am not good at.
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Jul 10, 20094:06 am
Twitter is beautiful because of the limited text!! It will make you think critically before writing anything. Today, we are overwhelmed with a lot of information. Who has time to read every single thing? But Twitter offers something powerful–concise and get to the point therefore people will remember
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Jul 10, 20092:40 am
when i joined i was in the 60% category who would never come back on here. Im not a very internet/tech friendly guy and would rather go run or swim than sit on the internet and read. i like checking my email and a quick glance at BBC.COM and im off. However, shijia’s post has made me give it another shot. i had no clue that twitter is just not another myspace/facebook.
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Jul 8, 20099:42 pm
Being a new user to Twitter I see a lot of the same benefits that Shijia sees. The ability to follow people in a social aspect and the ability to know special offers from restaurants or other everyday stores from a business aspects, Twitter sure have change the way I see social media.
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9:05 am
I had not known anything about Twitter until I recently joined in. All l used to use on the internet was communication with my Facebook and MSN. Now, I’ve found many of my friends using Twtter too, I’m so happy about that.
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