Thanks to @mashable on Twitter this morning, I learned that Twitter is the most popular word in the English language for 2009. The post by Ben Parr entitled, Twitter Declared Most Popular English Word of 2009, notes that:
- The Global Language Monitor lists Twitter as the top word of 2009 beating out “Obama”, “H1N1”, “Stimulus” (as in the U.S. Stimulus package), … and “2.0”.
- Microsoft’s Bing lists Twitter as its second most searched term for 2009 beating out “Swine Flu”, “Stock Market”, …”Cash for Clunkers”. “Michael Jackson” was number 1.
I first wrote about Twitter in June 2008, in the post, Twitter – What the heck is it? At that time I was a newby and the power of Twitter was not evident to me. Around the same time I created my Twitter account, I also created accounts at LinkedIn and Facebook . I expected that LinkedIn would have the most value for my business, then Facebook. I really didn’t see the business value to Twitter.
Since then, I have experienced very unexpected results. In fact, Twitter has been more valuable to doing business – so much so that I use Twitter about 8 times more than LinkedIn and Facebook these days. Twitter has been invaluable in getting quick answers to business questions and links to resources and How To’s. I have used it to drive traffic to my websites and those of clients, and with the help of bit.ly (short URL service), Google Analytics, and my raw log files, have been able to track the visits directly to individual tweets.
It took a while to determine a Twitter strategy. At first I followed many. As time went on, I learned what those I followed tweeted about. Then, I began sculpting the list of following to hone in on my target audiences and interests. About once per month now, I review my following and followers, and now my lists, to update them and keep them on target. I keep my business twitter account separate from my personal account.
Summary
I am not surprised that Twitter is the most popular word in the English language. I was a non-believer until I learned how to use Twitter in a way that was beneficial to my business. Once that happened, Twitter became a standard tool used in my business. I suspect that 2009 was a year of exploration and learning for others curious about Twitter.
NOTE: My Twitter profile has changed. I am now KarenCallahanMa
How has Twitter benefited your business? Use comments below to write about your experience.