Essay on Use of Twitter in Business

I have been a Twitter user but I have never taken time to try and understand why it is so popular and the reason it possesses such a huge potential as a tool in the business world. Being one of the most common social media platforms, it has generated a large number of users in the world and become a key mode for interactions among people and businesses online (Kwak et al., Np). To be specific, the Twitter platform has seen a tremendous growth over the past years and currently has over 320 million registered users. Some factors which have accounted for its ever-increasing popularity are the ease of its use and accessibility via computers and mobile phones.

In the world today, big companies such as DELL, JetBlue, and Whole Foods have taken up to using Twitter in marketing of their products and therefore their fans are able to follow each and every step that is taken by their idols, for instance, Ashton Kutcher and Oprah who happen to be registered members of Twitter. What the microblogging platform does is to bring customers and companies, celebrities and fans, closer to one another through effective dissemination of information. Businesses from all walks of life, both big and small, local and international, can advertise their products and services using twitter. This ensures that the huge user database of Twitter is able to reach to potential customers in an effective manner (Zhao and Dejin, Np).

The businesses are able to send an instant message to the persons who have subscribed to their page commonly known as followers on Twitter. These messages can be about new products, discounts on the ongoing sales and any other special announcement to their customers. Twitter is also important to the companies because they usually receive feedback majorly from their customers. The companies do analyze the diverse responses and are able to identify the popular item and why, they also get to know what was wrong with a certain product which probably did not realize good sales. They are also able to determine what type of people prefer certain items by considering their tweets, preferences, and location (Culnan et al.,Np).

For instance, a group of members who create a hashtag about car tuning could force the automobile manufacturers to put it on their priority list. Another instance is where Twitter members who have a blog that contains the word Computer games would receive messages from retailers about great deals on popular computer games and maybe computer parts. The companies, however, have to take caution to ensure that they do not invade the social life of its users online as this might affect the companies negatively.

Twitter has also seen the emergence of another feature that allows the transactions of small amounts of money among its users which is expected to become fully operational soon. This would create a new method for raising funds to aid various organizations. The method is also expected to promote businesses. The retailers will benefit by marketing their products and services, and also at the same time receiving orders and payments.

In the Twitter platform, people are able to speculate about the stock exchange. At times, groups are formed where discussions and researches are carried out on various stocks in the market.Rumours can also be spread via Twitter and thus influence the price of various shares (Bollen et al., 7). Some major media organizations are found in Twitters higher ranks and happen to be the ones with the biggest number of followers. This makes it a very effective way of delivering the news.

Twitter is a great social media platform for hiring and business networking. By choosing twitter as the social media strategy, businesses can have Twitter users follow them and they could help spread the brand when they keep talking about it.

Works Cited

Kwak, Haewoon, et al. "What is Twitter, a social network or a news media?." Proceedings of the 19th international conference on World wide web. ACM, 2010.

Zhao, Dejin, and Mary Beth Rosson. "How and why people Twitter: the role that micro-blogging plays in informal communication at work." Proceedings of the ACM 2009 international conference on Supporting group work. ACM, 2009.

Culnan, Mary J., Patrick J. McHugh, and Jesus I. Zubillaga. "How large US companies can use Twitter and other social media to gain business value." MIS Quarterly Executive 9.4 (2010).

Bollen, Johan, Huina Mao, and Xiaojun Zeng. "Twitter mood predicts the stock market." Journal of computational science2.1 (2011): 1-8.