Can Twitter Benefit Business Executives?

It has been a while since I blogged. It feels good to be back!
The usefulness of Twitter continues to be debated. Last week, George Packer, a staff writer at The New Yorker, wrote that he wants to yell Stop every time he hears about Twitter. With constant updates, Twitter only adds to the overwhelming amount of information we receive every day, according to Mr. Packer. Nick Bilton of New York Times responded yesterday to Mr. Packer’s article by listing the numerous ways in which Twitter has been found to be useful.

Amidst this debate, which has been going on since Twitter became available (see Clive Thompson’s 2007 article in Wired Magazine as an illustration of this debate during its earlier days), the use of Twitter continues to grow. Yesterday’s Wall Street Journal covered the increasing use of Twitter in Europe and provided a variety of examples of how European firms are benefiting from Twitter. The article suggested that Twitter can be a useful tool provided you have clear objectives and strategy for using Twitter.

What I found noteworthy in the WSJ article is the increasing adoption of Twitter by business executives. The article stated that while most business executives consider “tweeting” as a waste of their time, some have been quick to use Twitter as part of their busy routines. For instance, Paul Johns, VP of Complinet, a multinational provider of risk and compliance information for financial services, has been able to use Twitter to generate additional revenue for his company. Mr. Johns tweets three or four times daily and he is able to generate cash through Twitter by putting up a link to a trial system with a unique URL, which allows his firm to know which deals come from Twitter.

A recent NY Times interview of Cristóbal Conde, President and C.E.O. of SunGard, also illustrated the use of Twitter by business executives. Mr. Conde and others at SunGard use Yammer, a Twitter-like service, to enable a flatter SunGard. They use Yammer to see what others are doing, share information, collaborate, brag about their successes and, in the process, according to Mr. Conde, flatten the organization. Mr. Conde uses Yammer to share what he learns from clients - their biggest problems, their biggest issues, and their biggest bets. Instead of communicating these via broadcast emails, which he considers to be too formal, Mr. Conde shares them via brief Yammer posts. He credits Yammer with helping him create a more collaborative and merit-based culture at SunGard.
The above examples are not the only examples of use of Twitter by business executives. A BusinessWeek slideshow from May 2009 documented the use of Twitter by 50 CEOs who included Richard Branson and Mark Cuban. These CEOs use Twitter for a variety of purposes, including staying in touch with their far-flung workforce, having a two-way dialog with their business partners and customers, and broadcasting important announcements to customers.

The best way for business leaders to understand Twitter (and other social media) is to begin using it. Once they begin to use Twitter, their skepticism will give way to an appreciation of how Twitter can be used beneficially. They will find that it is a highly malleable tool that easily lends itself to innovative uses (see NY Times article “Twitter is What You Make of It” and Leading Virtually’s past post “Where There’s a Will, There’s Twitter“).

Posted in: Social Networking