The Pros and Cons of Twitter in the Workplace

The Pros and Cons of Twitter in the Workplace
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<img src="https://img.bhs4.com/45/A/45AD45143DCDA806D2FB0515D677976D7C95EFAE_large.jpg" alt="twitter">

Twitter is a social networking website which allows users to type a message no more than 140 characters in length about what they are doing. People may follow other users, and people who are not “following” each other cannot see updates. The services SMS updates along with being able to keep updates private, meaning the updates will not be indexed in the search engines.

Benefits

The main benefit to Twitter is being able to connect to your consumer audience and announce specials, sales, and other promotions. You may also be able to connect to others in related fields to expand your service base or be able to offer discounts to your customers. An example would be a web and graphic designer who finds a printing company and an internet marketing specialist. When the three of them work together, they can all offer extra business for each other.

The “tweets” or “twitters” as they are sometimes called are short blurbs used to direct traffic to a particular URL, such as a product page, an article, or a blog post. These “tweets” are a great source of traffic, but shouldn’t be the center of an internet marketing campaign.

It’s also a great way to see what people are talking about so one can find out about the market, or see if their product or service is being discussed. Business owners can get an inside glimpse into the minds of consumers and learn about competitors, too.

Twitter provides a code for each account which may be pasted into the HTML code of a website in order to link the two together. Use this to gain followers on Twitter who find the website first, and to fuel visitors to the website from Twitter.

Drawbacks

Using Twitter may become addictive. It is very tempting to sit and refresh the page over and over to see what others are saying. Sometimes, people may find themselves posting more “tweets” than they should be, and losing time they should be using to focus on other tasks. Though there are not really any direct security issues, one should consider limiting the use of the program at work, or installing an application like TweetDeck help employees so they do not have to constantly refresh the page to see who’s saying what to who and when.

This post is part of the series: Social Networking and the Workplace

Does allowing your employees to participate in social networking activities place your business security at risk? In this six part series, learn about five popular social networking websites and what harm they may or may not cause to your business security.

  1. Social Networking and the Workplace: Social Networking Policy
  2. The Role of MySpace in Business
  3. Facebook for Business: Good Idea?
  4. The Role of Twitter in Business
  5. The Role of LinkedIn in Business
  6. The Role of Windows Live Spaces in Business