Here is an opportunity for any chamber members to do some free advertising on the Midway Chamber Website! If you already have a twitter account and are fairly well versed in how to use twitter you can go ahead and skip to the bottom of this article. For those of you who are new to twitter keep reading.
The first thing you’re going to need to do is get a twitter account. Go to twitter.com and make an account. It’s free and takes just about no time. I’d also recommend filling out the rest of your account. The more attractive your twitter site the more likely it is that people will want to interact with you. You can check out www.twitter.com/midwaychamber as an example.
The next step is to start following some people. Since you’re already at the Midway Chamber’s twitter page, why not follow us? Then check out some of the people we’re following or that are following us. You will definitely recognize some familiar faces and names. Follow them too. Now if you click on Home at the top of your screen you will see a feed of all the people you’ve started following.
While this is great, social media is more than just a news service (though Twitter is becoming the fastest way for news to get out – the terrorist attacks in Mumbai and the airline crash in the Hudson river were broadcast around twitter before any conventional media) and you should use twitter to communicate a message to those who have chosen to follow you.
Keeping a balance between broadcasting, receiving, and interacting with followers is important. There are many schools of thoughts on this and I can’t answer what balance is appropriate for you or your organization, but it’s something to consider.
There is, however, a widely adopted consensus that using a third party application to use twitter is the best way to use twitter, and I would wholeheartedly agree with this. The Midway Chamber uses a program called TweetDeck which is very popular amongst twitter users. Other popular clients are Twhirl, Seesmic Desktop, and the newly popular Tweetie (Mac Only). There are a slew of other programs and tools you can use to interact with twitter. Search Google and you’ll find more than you could possibly imagine. But a basic one you should familiarize yourself with is search.twitter.com
Try searching for #MCCE. This is what is called a hashtag. It’s a way that people group twitter messages together. In this case, #MCCE refers to Midway Chamber of Commerce Events. As you can see there’s not much there…That’s where you all come in.
For those skipping to the bottom, start reading…
Do you have an event coming up that you’d like to share with other chamber members? Post it with twitter and make sure to include the #MCCE hashtag. Now go to the Midway Chamber Live Page – You should see your message in the Midway Chamber Events box. And so will anyone else that checks us out. You’ll also notice that we’ve created a #MCCD hashtag for anyone looking to share a deal with Midway Chamber Members. Check back often to see other deals and events coming up!
These tools are works in progress and I am definitely open to suggestions from all of you on how to improve these features. Or maybe there is a feature you’d like to see us have available for you but don’t already…leave me a comment and I’ll see what I can do. If you have any questions on the material I talked about let me know and I’ll get back to you ASAP.
