Information Dissemination with Twitter

It is my opinion that the best use of Twitter is centered on information dissemination. I'm not referring to the myriad of useless gibberish about the time you woke up, or what you ate for dinner or the fact you had a hard time finding your shoes in the morning. What I am referring to is information on events, relevant news from the people you follow, situations that are rapidly evolving, and opinions on relevant happenings.

Twitter has the ability to call into action a massive amount of people in a limited amount of time for any cause or purpose. It can also be harmful by propagating negative and erroneous information that is difficult to recover from. Information dissemination on this platform must be used wisely. This power to share must be handled with a sense of privilege and responsibility. From a negative perspective we have seen more and more often; our tweets, has cause loss of jobs, lawsuits, and some cases public outrage. However, the positive aspects of increase awareness, promoting ideas, launching careers, entertaining, bringing people together for a cause, outweigh the negative impacts of Twitter and it has become a major part of many organization's social media strategy.

What I'm interested in is what everyone out here thinks about Twitter and its power to influence, rally the masses, and make a difference in our society as a whole. I believe that this is a valuable tool and can serve as a catalyst in letting the world know what we are thinking!

Developing a Social Media Strategy

Over the past few weeks I have been working on a social media strategy. One of the challenges I have faced is determining what will work or make sense for the organization (university) I'm developing/executing this strategy for. The use of social media is being debated in the military and at fortune 500 companies. The use of social media I believe will drive potential customers to your business (or student to the university in my case) as well as become an essential vehicle in informing your consumers about what is going on at your place of business. This recent article "Fortune 500 Companies Using Social Media to reach Customers" http://www.chicagobusiness.com/cgi-bin/article.pl?article_id=32875 and the recent DoD decision http://www.defense.gov/NEWS/DTM%2009-026.pdf is supportive of the need for ALL organizations to consider developing/executing a social media strategy.

Developing a social media strategy really starts with understanding how the organization intends to leverage social media (awareness, gain customers, push out news and events, announce new products, etc) and what benefits will you gain by having a social media strategy. For the university I have looked at this from the standpoint of awareness of university educational programs, promote what makes us difference and the benefits of becoming a student at the university.

I would like to hear from those who have developed and executed social media strategies. What exactly has worked for you? Am I on the correct path to social media success! Share your thoughts with me. Yes... I am also on twitter: http://twitter.com/bigtonyrhem