I use twitter mainly as a microblogging tool...including, but not limited to random musings, my current status, micro movie reviews, sharing of interesting links, etc. I also have this automatically feed into my Facebook status.

One way this could be useful as a business tool is to use it as a way to distribute our latest news (almost like an RSS feed). NPR does a good job of this on Twitter: https://twitter.com/nprnews

Chirag Shah
Webmaster-Real Estate

Since my post yesterday, I've discovered that our own ClickZ network uses Twitter to push headlines out that bring traffic back to its website. And some Incisive conference producers in London are using Twitter to search for speaker recommendations for upcoming conferences. Other ideas for how to use it? -- Bill

It could also be a good tool to use for legal recruiting (Law Jobs). We could highlight new positions; suggest legal job hunting tips, or preparation etc... designed to bring traffic back to the site as well.

I believe Career builder uses it in a similar fashion: http://twitter.com/NewYorkTechJobs

Funny you should ask. After a recent Digital PR conference, I began using Twitter. I have been using Twitter Search to see if our brands or key executives are being blogged about. Found this one from Kevin on you
http://kevin.lexblog.com/2008/04/articles/new-media/bill-pollak-ceo-of-alm-lexblog-q-a/
It seems that a number of journalists and bloggers are on Twitter so from a PR perspective, there may be some interesting reasons to use it. Additionally, I think that Twitter can be an excellent networking tool at our larger events like Legal Tech.

Honestly, I believe twitter is one of the few social media devices that does not translate well for marketing.

Twitter continues to be effective for mass distribution of short messages and announcements. Definitely, reporting on events in real time and communicating breaking news.

But true marketing interaction? I think it falls short in today's mediums - lets think about it for a second. I can get texts from a casual acquaintance or a business associate, on my phone? How many will that be? How often, how long until I turn it off and say "when". I can read them online? If I'm online I'm on Instant message, anyone i care to hear from has got me there.

Blog updates? Thats why we have RSS feeds - want me to click to read more then I'm logged into my computer to begin with - why a twitter spot for my blog posts?

Also - Facebook does a much better job of this in a lot of ways, mostly - because it corrals the feeds to people who care in an environment where they are engaged in caring about what I might be doing, and can also respond back to just me or everyone in our network to see.

I think the continued question remains how to straddle social mediums that are really built for invitation based or "inner circle" communication ("hey we're all going to McHale's later tonight") for semi-intrusive marketing messages. The first step in marketing and sales using these tools, is getting the invite in. And understanding what your relationship means to the user.

Segmenting environments and then aggregating summaries is best for this. Tell me what is going on in lots of places and I will decide what I read more about. Law.com has the greatest potential for this aggregation including tweets.

Will we have a designated area on page one of law.com that shows what our reporters are up to maybe?

I tweet over at http://www.twitter.com/Kehinde

I am in the process of shopping a fantasy novel right now (the first 5000 words are up at http://www.longtalepress.com/submissions/excerpts/29/read) and I follow many editors and agents. That way I can see who likes what kind of book. If an agent says they hate ancient mythologies, I don't query them with this one. If an agent expresses any kind of interest in Ancient Egypt, I note that in the query letter.

An interesting marketing trick is the Amazon "runups" some authors do. These are small podcast novelists who have a book coming out in print, often from a small publishing house. They tweet (and their friends tweet) on the release date to generate buzz and run the book up the rankings. Once the book places higher, it tends to sell better in the long run as it is featured more prominently.

Magazines and newspapers often tweet to drive traffic to their sites. The New York Times might run a headline and a link. They've been doing that for quite some time, so I have to guess it's working for them.

But you never told us what your Twitter account is. I for one would like to follow you.

My Twitter address is http://www.twitter.com/wpollak. But, trust me, nothing very exciting going on there--at least not yet! -- Bill

I started Twittering after I heard Kevin O'Keefe speak in Seattle several months ago. I use it socially as well as a marketing tool (which, of course, limits the way I use it socially!). I have several clients that follow me and I follow quite of a few of them as well. I suddenly know things about my clients' family and work lives that would never have come out in casual conversation. I feel closer to them just knowing what they're up to and I'm hoping they feel the same way about me.

I try to post every time I visit a new city or hear a Legal Marketing Association program because I want my clients to see that I'm on the move, in the field every day and constantly advancing my legal marketing education. I'll post when I learn something new or maybe when I'm working hard on closing a particular issue.

In the long run, I don't know how long I can keep up - I've already removed several people from my mobile alert but it's been a fun experiment so far.

Our colleague Rory Brown at Incisive UK forwarded me a note he posted back in May concerning the potential business uses for Twitter. He shares some interesting ideas:

http://sipaukblog.typepad.com/sipa_uk_blog/2008/05/twitter-ye-not.html

--Bill