What Kind Of Chatter Are You Monitoring Via Twitter?

Its no secret that I love Twitter, and can’t live without it (in fact – feel free to follow me).  Even other people, like I found on Twitter today, share my addiction of Twitter and may need Twitter interventions:

Are You Addicted To Twitter?
Are You Addicted To Twitter?

I went on to answer @SEOAly that it was not possible because I had tried several times, and failed.  It leads me to ask the question though about what kind of chatter you are monitoring Twitter for?  I love following other people in my industry, and it helps me find and stay on top of all that is going on.  This is one of just many uses I have for Twitter.  Are you using Twitter search as a part of your online reputation management?  I am not going to go off and say its the next big search engine or anything silly like that, but are you using it to see what things people are saying about you and your business?

If you are not checking it out to see whats being said, you could be missing out on some cool stuff.  Check this out that I found when I was checking up on my name:

Monitoring Twitter
Monitoring Twitter

Now I am not sharing this to pump up my ego, but what if I did this and someone said that I sucked and was the worst ever?  I would have been able to reply and ask them exactly what I had done they didn’t like – and I would have been able to make improvements for the next time.  It’s cool to also see stuff like this too because you can use it as a mini-testimonial for your name, brand or company too.  This kind of real time feedback can be an amazing thing for businesses who care about what people are saying!

I guess the real question I am asking is this; Do you just waste time on Twitter, or are you taking advantage of it? This is real time folks, and with this instant gratification world we live in there is nothing better then real time feedback and monitoring.  You are going to find stuff, and people talking about way quicker on Twitter then you ever will on Google, and that is the main reason you need to be interested in the chatter!

What are some other ways you use the Twitter chatter?  I would love to hear!

19 thoughts on “What Kind Of Chatter Are You Monitoring Via Twitter?

  1. Alysson says:

    I couldn’t agree more, Mat – and I echo your sentiment of the importance of real-time feedback. Twitter Search provides some great insight into what people are discussing this very moment in a way that Google simply can’t – at least not at this point.

    On that note, configuring TweetDeck properly can save you the trouble of having to do a manual search at search.twitter.com for a variety of phrases. If you haven’t checked out TweetDeck yet, you should!

  2. Alysson says:

    @Mat Siltala
    Right on, Mat – I haven’t abandoned twitter.search.com either. There are some advanced search functions there that are very useful! I use TweetDeck’s search feature for specific phrases I want to keep an eye on, but don’t necessarily want to take the time to do a manual search for…like titles of my blog posts that are likely to be Tweeted, but might not include my name or URL (thanks to URL shortening).

    The moral of the story is to use all of the tools that are available to make monitoring conversations as efficient and constructive as possible! There’s no one tool that will cover all of the bases…

  3. Trevor @ Financial Nut says:

    I’m still not sure exactly how I am going to use it to better my business. I’m working on following others within the same industry with me, networking, etc…

    There are just so many social media outlets that it’s hard to put a ton of time to one or the other. Though I spend some time on Twitter, I find myself “maintaining” my SU, BlogCatalog, etc…

    It’s just hard to find the balance.

  4. Brent says:

    Mat – We use it to monitor if anyone is looking for a web development company in certain cities. This way we can instantly respond with our business info. I pull the Twitter search feed into my RSS reader to montior it.

  5. Olivier Amar says:

    Hi Mat. I think it has a lot to do with a lot of things (I just said absolutely nothing in 57 characters because we never do that in Twitter right?). We use twitter for work to say updated (like you said). We use it to promote others and ourselves, we use it to network but I think that above all those great things, the 30 seconds it takes you to tweet, gives you the little break away from the clients SEM. It’s a sort of a power break that leaves you smiling. It’s a great work tool, but it also helps keep us sane in the middle of the longs hours SEM takes away from us.

  6. Supahstah says:

    I too have become addicted to Twitter. I use it for personal and not business use. I find that I enjoy links to useful articles (like this one- I followed over from a Twitter link), but I really enjoy mini-real-life updates. The true “what are you doing now” notes are often hilarious and inspire conversation or comment.

  7. Gerald Weber says:

    It think twitter search is just awesome. There are so many cool ways you can use it. one of the more important being of course finding out what people are tweeting about you in almost real time.

  8. Lise says:

    So Mat. I am really enjoying your blog and have started following you – with thanks to Gerald. But I have challenge that no one seems to be able to help me with – perhaps you can.

    1) I endeavor to ask questions of folks and start conversations and yet I am ignored. I am asking honest questions that I would really like answers to, yet apparently folks think they are not…. any thoughts there?

    2) I feel like many, many of the twitter posts that run through my desk are links to posts elsewhere. That is well and good, but doesnt really teach me about or connect me with the poster. Am I mis-understanding the uses of twitter?

    I dont think I quite am getting the power behind this…..I’m sure its a learning curve, and I have been telling my clients about my twitter (I post a weekly special every Monday) but beyond that, I think I am failing somehow.

    Any helpful thoughts?

Leave a Reply to Lise Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *