Something to Twitter About
I think I just had my first truly valuable corporate twitter experience.
I’m a light user of twitter, so it’s probably not surprising that I’m saying this after about 7 months of use (just checked and saw that my first tweet was Nov. 7, 2007).
And by a light user, I truly mean light – as of this blog post I’ve only “updated” 149 times. Compare this to “guykawasaki” (Guy Kawasaki) who has 7,404 updates, “Scobelizer” (Robert Scoble) with 12, 417, and “Pistachio” (Laura Fitton) who has 12,761 updates.
Laura Fitton is actually the reason I started to use twitter. I heard her speak on a panel at a PRSA/Social Media Club Boston event and she discussed how valuable twitter had been to her career.
OK- to the point (something I have trouble with when I’m writing).
The other day I got a pingback that a page on Work.com had linked to my 200 negative keywords post. I went to check it out, and found Eve‘s article to be really well written and valuable (outside of the fact that she linked to me). So, I left a comment on her article.
Today I saw that “workdotcom” started to follow me on twitter. Hmmm. First reaction was “ouch, the marketing guys at Work.com got me” when I established a profile there (so that I could leave that comment). But, as I went to check out workdotcom’s twitter profile, the first thing I saw was an update from them/him/her (still don’t know who it is, but I should find out), announcing to the twitter community that they should check out the 200 negative keywords article I wrote.
Very cool. So, I replied tweet-style with an @workdotcom address and said something cheesy like “@workdotcom you had me at hello. i shall follow thee.”
Workdotcom then sent me a “direct message” through twitter letting me know that they would keep tabs on our blog. I messaged back, said thanks, and told them (truthfully) that this was one of the better cases I’ve seen of a company using twitter. Got a message back, pointing me to a nice resource about twitter for corporate use.
Now, I’m writing about this experience and giving “props” to workdotcom. Social media full circle.
Here are some of the nice outcomes of this loop (so far):
- Got a mention of my article, and a link, from Work.com
- I gave Eve some nice feedback
- I signed up as a member of Work.com
- Work.com was able to identify me as a potential contributor to their community (in some form) and started to follow me on twitter
- Work.com took the time to not only start following me, but also gave me some recognition with a tweet about my article
- I thanked Work.com
- Work.com messaged me directly, we began a dialog, and I found that article about corporate tweeting useful
- Work.com is getting some recognition here, and a couple of links
- While aware of work.com previously, I now have a renewed interest in the community and will likely write some articles for them (which gives them the user-generated-content that drives their business).
All this without ever knowing “workdotcom”‘s real name, location, etc.
If you are interested, come follow me on twitter and engage in a dialog…