With the likes of Stephen Fry, Jonathan Ross and John Cleese being devoted fans, not to mention sports stars such as Andy Murray, Lance Armstrong and Michael Phelps, it probably comes as no surprise that more and more people are tuning in to Twitter to see what all the fuss is about. Hell, if you look hard enough, you might even find me on there!

It has already been a major source of debate amongst those in the world wide media, spreading interest perhaps for the wrong reasons as people generally start to question the need for so many social networking sites, and particularly the need for one that doesn’t seem to offer the same advantages as many of its predecessors.

For those who have heard about Twitter but are still just getting used to the concepts of ‘MySpace’ and ‘Facebook’, then you can relax; Twitter is a little simpler to join, easy to use and is generally very easy to navigate around. The concept of the website revolves “micro blogging” with 140 character entries or less, updating ‘followers’ with what you’re up to, to ‘feed’ snippets of information about what you’re doing whether it’s something exciting that may have happened to you during the day, or whether it’s as mundane as letting the world know that you’re just waiting for the kettle to the boil.

It can be a great way to communicate with people from anywhere in the world, and for many, it can be a means by which to befriend and spy on celebrities without them taking out a restraining order! It would seem that for some, this is currently its main purpose – how else would you be able to find out what Britney Spears is eating for her dinner, if of course, such matters were really of interest to you?

One of the biggest criticisms levelled at Twitter in its earlier days was that it was unclear as to what the real purpose and benefits of this social networking site really were. For some, the fact that individual entries are limited to a couple of sentences is one of the major strengths of Twitter. No more serial streams of consciousness rambling on for thousands of words with a “bit of meat” in there somewhere. For others, this very same constraint renders twitter largely purposeless, with little being examined in depth.

As ever, there are merits in both views. That said, there would seem to be little point in creating something that was simply yet another “me too” networking site. The fact is that, love it or hate it, social networking is here to stay and, reflective of the speed of online business cycles, is maturing at a pace. Perhaps one of the greatest motivators behind this, from a commercial perspective, is that social networking extends the search “real estate” into properties other than the major search engines, harvesting potentially targeted traffic and for those willing to invest the effort into properly exploiting it, offering the potential to build brand awareness and traffic using reasonably well defined and understood approaches. An affiliate site that stands almost no chance whatsoever of ranking organically for a super-competitive term may just earn its slice of traffic and revenue through the judicious use of social networking techniques.

Perhaps even more excitingly, social networking doesn’t require a 9 month wait for the search engines to credit all of the elements of an effective natural search strategy. The traffic is there in real time. It does, however, require considerable commitment, resource and an in-depth knowledge of the space in which you operate in order to identify the right social sites, keywords and to be able to engender the degree of trust, respect and thus a following required to make it effective. Social networking is not a strategy for lightweights or the uncommitted.

So where does Twitter fit into the scheme of things? For anyone who works in affiliate marketing (or indeed any form of online marketing), then the power of a environment that allows for communicating in real time on a massive scale should never be underestimated. Twitter is undoubtedly a great way of reporting the latest information to a live audience; you can push an RSS feed into Twitter to create a mobile / social network update. It is also a great platform for bloggers to share ideas and you can aggregate a number of Twitter ‘feeds’ to one collective feed aggregating the output from a particular group. The granularity of the information provided to Twitter makes this all the more feasible and manageable in size when compared to aggregating information from wordier sources.

Twitter has thus become a platform for people to share what they are doing, where they are going, and what their likes and dislikes are, either as an individual or as a business. This offers a number of opportunities for retailers and marketing companies but there is still a long way to go before this becomes the norm on Twitter. That said, numerous commercial examples already include “real time” information such as product launches, vouchers and offers, events and other time sensitive information. A good many retailers now have their own Twitter presence, evidenced by the “follow us on Twitter” links appearing on retailers’ sites. Simple search facilities allow easy identification of users and themes of potential interest. There are fewer artificial barriers than with other social media. For example, LinkedIn provides a very strong commercial networking capability but requires greater knowledge of or connections with individuals or firms in order to create associations. Although some LinkedIn members diligently update their profiles with current activities, these tend to be the exception rather than the rule.

The relative infancy of Twitter is also one of its attractions, with good traffic volumes and yet manageable competition levels in even reasonably tough categories: a turf war will no doubt ensure! To the affiliate marketer, this means that there should be ample opportunity to divert attention, to gain an audience, to distract.to earn money. As with any marketing program, the key to success should lie in understanding the wants and needs of your key customers and the rapid, real time nature of Twitter is an ideal environment in which to pick up useful input to this process and to respond to in an effective manner that may result in awareness, traffic and revenues.

All social media properties go through a maturing process and many people may find themselves logging out for good as corporate entities slowly start to take their share of Twaffic (and no we didn’t coin that one!). However, can anyone really afford not to adapt and take the opportunities to reach larger audiences wherever possible? Whilst those cynical as to the value of social media in general will no doubt wait for the Twitter phenomenon to pass through time along with ‘Tamagotchies’, ‘Shoulder pads’ and ‘the Atkins Diet’, the rest of us may want to consider Twitter very seriously indeed. Growth has been staggering in the last 12 months and is, if anything, accelerating.

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