I was lying in bed last night, as you do when you are supposed to be falling asleep, and I got to thinking about how almost impossible it was to remember a world before the internet. This did not help the falling asleep process at all! Just thinking about Twitter and how to apply it for business, etc got me amazed at how quickly things have come into our lives that we now take for granted.
I know washing machines and toasters were big inventions in their day, but it wasn’t like there was a mass adoption of these appliances all at once. Looking at the internet – it took a while to catch on, but once someone figured out a decent interface and some applications, it was moving.
Every month there seems to be another social media application that comes out and spreads like wildfire. Can almost be a bit overwhelming to keep up with, but it is also very exciting. I love digging around to see what is new and what it could be used for.
I just figured out you can have twitter automatically fed with your lastest blog posts – part of what prompted me to write this – a test! We had been looking at using a blog for Customer Support to communicate with customers. Now that would be even more valuable because the blog could generate tweets as well. Marketing is meeting with me today to brainstorm about ways to use Twitter for customer generation.
I like that we can use the same tool for both areas of the business. Marketing wants new customers and Support wants to develop the relationship with existing customers. I used to produce a monthly e-newsletter for Support and it got some good feedback. Who better to tell you what they want, than the users!
Blogs and Twitter might just get us to an even closer relationship with the customers – many of whom become the strongest advocates of our products.
So I will continue to surf around and play with the new cool toys just so I can get our business running the best it can!
