Blogs move over. Twitter is is the new squeeze of the social media scene and thus is getting more of a spotlight shined upon it by those who’re looking for more effective ways of taking their message to their users.
There are two things companies are doing. Employees are getting on Twitter as themselves and talking on behalf of their company or companies are making corporate Twitter accounts like Starbucks or the Washington DC Metro (subway) System.
In a recent Mashable article, my friend Dr. Mark Drapeau makes the case that Twitter is for two way conversations. It’s about individual people talking to individual people.
I agree that this is a major use but I think that Twitter can be used just as effectively for one way broadcasts. There are plenty of times where I want to keep up with something, in the hyper connected manner that Twitter lends itself too, but don’t want to have a conversation with them.
Look at the success of the Barack Obama campaign on Twitter. Let’s be honest with ourselves. This wasn’t Barack Obama on Twitter. Someone in his campaign hooked their RSS feed of live events to their Twitter account so that their community could know when things are going on. And guess what?… it worked. 150,000+ folks followed the account and I’m confident it drove significant traffic to their Web site.
If I was a big fan of Dunkin Donuts, I’d absolutely want to follow them on Twitter. It’s not because I want to have a conversation with them. It’s because if they’re holding an event or something where I can get a discount, I want to know about it right away.
I guess what I’m saying is… I think the value of Twitter is in its hyper connectedness. It allows me to have that level of ambient intimacy with whomever I want however I want. Whether I want to use that for being connected with the coming and goings of people, organizations, trends/memes, or for having conversations, that’s up to me as the user.
Oatmeal Stout - Justin Thorp's blog 
Thanks Justin. I’d say that Obama was an exciting exception, and for most small and medium brands that want to build trust and loyalty, they will get more milage out of using people than with anon accounts, even if those accounts are personable. The CEO of Zappos and similar really connect because you know it’s them at the other end.
Mark, I completely agree that businesses can get great mileage out of using Twitter for that person to person interaction. I also think there is great utility in using Twitter as a place to get those up to the minute broadcast style updates from an organization or company.
I think 23,000 updates for
just 113 transit twitter followers puts things in perspective.
@paulwiggins