Some thought has been put into my profile on Linkedin. When it says "helps organizations and professionals realize their full potential and solve their biggest challenges" well that's what I am trying to do. Hopefully it shows every now and again. When @StartracFitness invited me to share views on social selling, there came a few points during the presentation where I saw that look in people's eyes. I'll call it the look of WOW, wonderment, realization; a look I live for because it can mean you are making an impact. When you can get an audience to rethink what they are doing, how they are doing it and why they should maybe do it differently its a win. Its that aha moment. I saw a few of those looks last Thursday in Irvine California. (see the video below for an example of what spurred the look).
Hopefully you know my view: technology has created awesome potential for doing good for people, for customers for the world , if used correctly. Technology tools like Twitter are a good example, yet many still don't use the tool. With around 218 million active users you can use Twitter like Google and search to learn so much information as well as connect with many professionals and people that share your interests.The 2014 Fitness Industry Technology Council U.S. Health Club Survey Report showed, however, that only 27% of club leaders use twitter at all.
I use Twitter because its fantastically powerful. Health clubs, service and consulting organizations, like Star Trac Fitness, non-profits, and others can all use Twitter. Leaders in the health club business including @RobertjDyer , @ChuckRunyon, @SarahRobbOh, @SFable, @ECRetro , @GMelstrand , @CEOScott and many many others use the Twitter platform.
To learn more about why Twitter Rocks visit Twitter's Youtube Account. Do you use it ? Why or why not ? I'd love to hear what you have to say. And on a final note many thanks go out to the @StarTracFitness team and my team including Michael Bruno, Terry Woods, Vanessa Lee, Jeff Dilts, Sal Pellegrino, Eleanor Hisey, Robert Dyer, Maureen O'Rourke and so many others. Thanks to you all for the chance to do what I love to do.
At “Chirp”, Twitter’s developer conference, the company unveiled promoted tweets, new mobile apps, an enhanced geo-tagging feature, a link-shortening function, live search and the sale of its archives to the Library of Congress. That is a lot to talk about at a single event, but its not surprising given what's been going on with Twitter for the past year.
Augie Ray from Forrester shared this view, "Twitter's been under a lot of pressure to be a more transparent business. Now the company has come to a point in its maturity where it's starting to operate much more as a business and less as a startup."
The announced changes are not without skeptics. Some feel the promoted tweets are intrusive and third-party app developers are concerned Twitter is trying to put them out of business. But Twitter has also been criticized for taking too long to unveil its long term plans. Developers were unclear about where they should invest their efforts.
Here is an overview of the latest changes coming to Twitter with much of it based on David Goldman’s recent CNNMoney.com article “Twitter grows up: Take a peek inside”: Thanks David. Also, watch the video about foursquare's reaction to Twitter.
Promoted tweets: By far the most significant announcement. When users search with select keywords, a tweet from a company that bought those keywords will appear at the top of the feed. Companies that currently feature ads on the site include Best Buy (BBY, Fortune 500), Starbucks (SBUX, Fortune 500) and Sony Pictures.
Though the current model is still in the experimental phase, the company is hoping to succeed by making the promotional advertising more closely reflect individual users' interests.
Ensuring Twitter remains consumer-driven and not overly corporate is key to its survival, said Bob Pearson, president of the Social Media Business Council. "The reason Twitter is successful is because it has allowed customers to find what's relevant to them," said Pearson. "If Twitter starts deciding for people what's important, that's not going to work."
Mobile apps: Twitter recently unveiled an official BlackBerry app, and bought the most popular Twitter app for Apple's (AAPL, Fortune 500) iPhone, called Tweetie. The company also plans to soon release an official Android app.
Twitter had previously relied on third-party developers to allow mobile users to access their Twitter accounts on their phones. Apps like Twidroid, Tweetie and UberTwitter were some of the most popular, but there were dozens of others.
Twitter nabs top app maker
It comes as little surprise that having no official mobile app was a barrier to new customers. When people searched for a Twitter app, many were confused about which one to use. While an official Twitter app hasn't made third-party developers too happy, Twitter made it clear that those developers are still hugely important. "It's not a coup against developers," said Ray of Forrester. "It's absolutely clear that Twitter is very committed to improving its platform for the development community."
Geo-tagging: Another big announcement was the unveiling of a "Places" function that would better allow users to see where tweets were coming from. Twitter will keep a database of restaurants, bars, parks, stations and other public arenas. Developers use that data to create tools like check-in, similar to other location-based services like Foursquare and Gowalla. Though some believe this poses a direct challenge to some of the more entrenched location-based services, Twitter argues that the new functionality is more of a complementary service.
It's more likely that Twitter would use the information to provide more relevant tweets about a specific area or place than hand out virtual points, badges or rewards like Foursquare's check-in.
Link-shortening: Since Twitter only allows users to post 140-character messages, URLs can take up a large chunk of the space for tweets. Services like bit.ly have become popular ways to shorten links to post in tweets. But using those services is cumbersome because users have to go outside Twitter's world to create those links.
Lawbreakers foiled by Facebook
Like with geo-tagging and mobile apps, the announcement made some developers nervous about the viability of their link-shortening services. But the barriers to creating link-shortening were so small (just register a two-character ending) that the business model of those services was questionable anyhow.
Archives: Twitter sold the rights to its archives to the Library of Congress, making them searchable on Google (GOOG, Fortune 500). All public tweets, dating back to the very first one on March 21, 2006, are now hosted in the government's Library of Congress. Users can access the archive by selecting the "Updates" option on Google's search page. The new feature adds a timeline at the top of the results page that shows the relative volume of tweets about that topic.
Live search: Lastly, live Twitter feeds began appearing in Bing search results pages this week. Twitter feeds have already been showing up in Google's search results for awhile, which served as the first source of revenue for the young company.
Like a lot of businesses ours has been working on integrating social media. Many Kudos to our team, in particular Denisse, Justin, Robert, Rodney, Kelli, Kristina and others who are experimenting with Twitter, in addition to other tools, over the past few months. It isn't easy and we're just getting started, but we are learning more every day.
Many don't understand the value of Twitter in particular. But a lot of folks have learned, as this Hubspot article expresses, it is VERY valuable if its just used properly. That is the trick using it properly. Watch Mark Shaw's expert twitter tips video that gives some great pointers on adopting this technology to engage your customers and create a discussion friendly environment around your brand.
