Introduction to Twitter

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Video Transcript | Intro

Twitter is an open social network that people use to converse with each other in short messages, known as tweets. Whether it’s sharing breaking news, posting updates about their company or following their favourite celebrities, people are using Twitter to connect with others and to discover new things every day.

Origin

Launched in 2006, Twitter is most popular with millennials and young professionals. However, it has experienced significant growth of users in all age groups since its launch.

How It Works

Twitter encourages users to follow and interact with different individuals, brands and media outlets, creating a real-time stream of messages tailored to their interests. People post updates, photos, videos and links to Twitter as they’re happening, enabling insightful, real-time, search results.

Twitter Marketing

For businesses, Twitter provides two-way connections not only with customers, but also with vendors, partners, and employees. When customers follow businesses, they can stay up to date with their products and services. Because Twitter is an open network, businesses are able to monitor their customers for insights into their ideas, habits, and opinions about different products and services.

Business Communications

Twitter provides a great way for different departments in an organization to communicate externally as well as internally. For sales and marketing, Twitter provides the opportunity to engage with current and potential customers. You can inform them about your latest news, products and services while directing them to sales offers and new content. Employees are also able to re-share any important content, allowing your messages to spread exponentially across their networks. Twitter also offers unique features such as Twitter Lists to track what different groups of people are saying about your business, industry and even your competitors.

Customer Service

On the customer service front, you can quickly respond to issues, increase your brand’s exposure, build brand loyalty and reward long-standing customers.

Mobile

Twitter users can also discover the latest happenings anywhere from their mobile device. Users are able to read, post, retweet and share different types of content straight from their phone.

When you combine messages that are quick-to-write, easy-to-read, and accessible anywhere, Twitter provides a powerful, real-time way for businesses to communicate with their communities.

Looking for more? To get started on Twitter, check out Twitter's guide. For a more indepth look at using Twitter for business, checkout our guide to Using Twitter for Marketing.