Trend: The Social News Paradigm

The new culture of sharing and curating news has progressively increased the importance we give to what our social network is sharing. This includes the latest news, uncomfortable private details of our friends’ lives, or immediate product and service reviews.

The latter of the three is of particular concern to business owners and consumers, especially because complaints on Twitter are public by default. Whereas answering complaint calls and dealing with clients privately used to suffice, a private response to a Tweet will likely be interpreted as silence or disinterest in a social media setting.

Trend: A New Sense of Real Time

Twitter brought the news feed to the masses – just a few years ago, RSS feeds were exclusive to uber-geeks. Whereas being updated used to mean reading the newspaper every morning, it now means reading headlines produced or shared within the previous hour.

For companies on Twitter, the real-time news stream mentality means last-minute sales. Potential profit-optimization possibilities include:

If approached strategically, real-time updates also allow Twitter to act as a sort of crystal ball, helping marketers and businesses predict revenue.

Trend: The Age of Public Influence Meters

One of the hottest new measurements with regard to Twitter success is influence. As flawed as influence scales may still be (as depicted by Amy Vernon in a recent blog post), there is no question that Twitter showcases its users connections and popularity – by nature. One’s following-to-followers ratio, the frequency with which one gets ReTweeted, or one’s ability to obtain responses from “big deals” are all visible to any Twitter user.

So is your brand’s reputation. The people – and other brands – with whom you interact help determine the level of influence you have in your niche.

In practice, this means businesses need to: Read more at www.blueglass.com