Image from Lee Oden
Twitter is an application that allows you to share thoughts and questions with people who choose to follow you. To keep the updates brief, entries are confined to 140 words. You can “follow” people on Twitter by subscribing to their updates.
Chris Brogan cautions against using Twitter to broadcast PR messages. Twitter is about personal relationships. Public relations researchers, from the John Ledingham and Stephen Bruning team to Elizabeth Toth, have found that personal relationships are important to an organization’s public relations. Hence, the relevance of Twitter to PR folks.
If you can help people with problems or topics people are considering, respond to their Twitter posts. To send someone a message, type “d username message”(without quotation marks) and write your message.
This will feel bizarre the first time you do it. I felt like a secret agent when I was typing the code. To get used to this, partner with a classmate and send a direct message to each other. You can only send a direct message to people who are following you on Twitter, so make sure to add one another first.
Additional reading:
The PR Post 
Tiffany, I was baffled by Twitter at first. Then I began to look into it more deeply. I posted some of the following information on my blog. Please allow me to share it with you now.
Robert Scoble, writing in the September 2007 issue of Fast Company, says since its introduction, Twitter has been one of the fastest growing applications in internet history. He describes Twitter as a “microblog service in which you tell people what you are doing or thinking at any given moment, limited to 140 characters.”
Twitter adds up to a new way to share information, like Facebook and MySpace. Twitter appears to be finding a legitimate place in sales and marketing. Scoble extolls the value of the “professional intimacy” use of Twitter can generate. He cites a valuable truth about sales and marketing, that people do business with people they like. If by sharing information on personal tastes, ideology, or actions, people can get to know you better, perhaps even develop some trust, then part of the sales and marketing battle is won.
To Tweet, or not to Tweet. That is the question.
Les
Thanks, Les! I was initially baffled as well, which is why I decided to do some research and write the post! Thank you for adding your insight. Getting to know people better often results in a closer relationship.
So glad to discover that you’re blogging!
Thanks, Karen! Also, thank you for adding me to your blogroll and for announcing my blog on Twitter. Your Twitter update made me blush, and my students can confirm this since I discovered it in my evening class tonight.
I clicked on several links that started from your Twitter and landed on this story: http://loudounextra.washingtonpost.com/news/2008/jan/10/how-frozen-peas-started-movement/
What a moving, touching story. Thank you.
Don’t we all have anything better to do? And why exactly must everyone be so “connected”? If you think about it, it’s really pathetic! Most of the news is lousy so why would you want to be updated all the time with crap? You folks just don’t want to miss anything! Jeez. Get lives will you please?
Steve, Twitter helps me stay in touch with my colleagues and former students — people who I otherwise would not get to interact with regularly. I find that it is also a valuable bridge between the academic and professional community of public relations practitioners. In fact, I recently designed a research study based on the needs identified by some public relations practitioners who I follow on Twitter. You can also read more about why people use Twitter here: http://www.caroline-middlebrook.com/blog/twitter-guide/
I also have a delicious page with links to Twitter success stories and tips: http://delicious.com/Tiffany_Derville/twitter
Also, please note my comment policy: “I will post all comments, except for cases of personal attack…” I am committed to a constructive dialog and will delete future comments from you that reflect the tone you have taken.