We’ve been making a business case for Twitter for quite some time.  Wielded correctly, it can be a useful tool for brand promotion, customer engagement, and public relations (an idea we recently expanded upon in Hot Off the Presses).  

Still, the ends and outs, hows and whys, hashtags and retweets can be overwhelming for newbies.   Sensing your frustration, Twitter decided to release Twitter 101 - the official Twitter how-to guide for businesses. Twitter 101 is a simple Q&A microsite with best practices and case studies thrown in.   If you’re unsure what Twitter is, how it works, or what it can do for your business, this is a great place to start.

We think the “Learn the Lingo” section is of particular interest.  By now, you probably know that a Twitter “tweet” is just jargon for message.  It gets a little muddled when you see hashtags (e.g. #digitalmarketing), usernames (@feedgrowth), retweets (RT @feedgrowth Check out our SiteJabber review), and shortened URLs (http://bit.ly/IZIdC) attached to the message.   The Lingo section breaks it all down and tells you how each element can be used to extend the reach of your message.   

You also want to check out the “Case Studies” section.  This is where the big dogs show you how it’s done (finally!) and includes testimonials from Dell, JetBlue, Pepsi, and American Apparel.   Many of the case studies document how Twitter is really an organic marketing tool.   That is, it helped their business in unplanned ways or provided customer insights.  Dell was able to attribute $3 million in revenue directly to Twitter, and American Apparel based an entire ad campaign on photographs of a customer wearing their cotton basics during her pregnancy.   

In the end, it’s up to you to figure out how Twitter can help your business.  Twitter 101 is definitely a road map, and of course, feed growth! has several ideas on Twitter companion applications that make using the service that much easier.

Social media has changed the game for public relations.  Blogs have become a powerful channel for content distribution, if not more powerful than newspapers, and Twitter accounts provide a direct connection between company and customer.

We don’t think press releases have gone the way of the dinosaurs yet, but we are seeing new and innovative ways for companies to circulate news.   For example, Muck Rack now offers a Twitter press release service.

Muck Rack is an aggregator site, streaming Twitter accounts from top journalists and bloggers (the Associated Press, ABC News, CNN, Fox News, Hufifngton Post, NPR, Reuters, The Washington Post, and more) to provide an “inside the newsroom” feel for media junkies.  The idea behind their new press release service is to put your content – your press release – in front of all those journalists, while capitalizing on the brevity of the Twitter tweet.

Submitting a press release to Muck Rack is a pretty straight forward process.  You don’t need a personal Twitter account either.  Just type a 130-character message in Muck Rack’s online form and hit submit.  This will most likely be your press release title or a good lead-in, plus the URL to the full press release.  We recommend using a service like bit.ly to shorten the URL, which supplies click-through rates for each URL tweeted.

Muck Rack charges $1 per character with a $50 minimum, which you pay through Paypal.   After payment is received, your press release goes out immediately, i.e. it’s tweeted by the @MuckRack Twitter account, added to Muck Rack’s PR page, and featured in the sidebar of the homepage.

Muck Rack averages around 30,000 site visitors/month and has 3,600 followers on Twitter.  Not too shabby, but again, it’s the audience we’re zeroing in on here.  If you’re trying to target journalists, reporters, publishers, and news junkies, which is the goal with any press release, Muck Rack may be the perfect venue.

It’s hard to promote your digital self when all your sites, tools, and social media profiles add up.   That’s where Card.ly, the online business card, comes in.

Card.ly is an easy way to organize and market your contact information.  When you sign-up for the service, you get a Card.ly URL (e.g. http://card.ly/maggiehunsucker), which you can customize with Card.ly templates and your personal details.  There’s an area for a bio, your contact information, social networks, and your blog’s RSS feed.  All in all, Card.ly supports about 50 networks, including Facebook, Twitter, Digg, LinkedIn, Yelp, Delicious, and more.

We see several ways a Card.ly comes in handy.  You can point your personal domain to Card.ly, include it as a link in your email signature, or publish on your real business card as an uncluttered and unobtrusive segue to your online presence.  You can also embed a Card.ly widget on your website or blog by cutting and pasting a line of code.

Card.ly includes both free and premium accounts.  The premium account ($24.99/year) gives you access to additional card templates, unlimited RSS feeds, and is free of advertisements.  Of course, you also get a statistics panel with the premium version, so you can see who is clicking on your profile and referring sites – a small price to pay to know how people are finding you.

Part of building your Twitter network is knowing who the movers and shakers are in your circle.

That’s where Twittorati comes in. It’s a new service from Technorati and not to be confused with AllTop’s TwittErati.

What’s the difference (other than a vowel)? Twitterati ranks popularity; Twittorati ranks authority. It does this by using parent site, Technorati’s, blog ranking system. So instead of Miley Cyrus or Ashton Kutcher taking the top spot (both have Twitter followers in the millions), Twittorati pulls the Twitter streams of the bloggers in its own Top 100 (Huffington Post, TechCrunch, Seth Godin, etc).

On the Twittorati homepage, you can view these tweets in a real-time stream or by authority.  You can also filter the stream by specific blog or trending topic (either Technorati tags or Twitter hashtags).  For those who want a more intimate look at what their favorite bloggers are sharing, there’s a “Latest Photos” and “Top Links”  feature.  Given that Twitter has positioned itself as a breaking news source, the latter may prove to be useful as a tool for industry news and rumblings.

We really like where Twittorati is heading.  Sure, there are other Twitter ranking sites out there, but most quantify users and neglect to qualify their real authority.  If I’m seeking meaningful Twitter connections based on my industry or interests, the number of links someone has (the backbone of Technorati’s ranking system) could be more important than the number of followers they’ve amassed.

Some marketers are hesitant to embrace brand communities as user generated content can be both powerful and unpredictable.

Still, if the buzz is good, you want to be participating in the conversation, not watching from the wings.

That’s the idea behind BzzScapes.   BzzScapes is a collection of member-generated brand communities, where people (BzzAgents) talk about products they like.  This can be blog posts, videos, coupons, etc.  Once a BzzScape is created, other members can contribute content, rate your content, or add comments. There are also BzzCampaigns,  where eligible BzzAgents weigh in on new products and influence how companies market them.

As a brand, there are several ways to participate on the site.   First, you can register your company with BzzScape.   There is a subscription service, but the payoff is direct access to BzzAgents and their insights.  You can run a BzzCampaign, hold a promotion through the site, or get intel on the performance of two competitors.   The other option (which we admit is somewhat dubious) is to create your very own brand BzzScape.   The idea being, you kickstart the conversation and let other BzzAgents participate.

BzzScapes operates as an influence community, rewarding members that contribute heavily with coupons, dibs on certain BzzCampaigns, and prominence within the site.  No money exchanges hands; BzzAgents are paid in honeycombs and ascend in bee ranking.  We enjoy a hard working pun, but we’ll let you discover the intricacies of the BzzScapes system (and what that means) on your own.  The gist is the more you contribute, the more good stuff you get.

There are lots of of active BzzScapes on the site and no shortage of big brand participation (including Ford and Proctor & Gamble).  Most of what we see is positive feedback.  Unfortunately, we are a lowly worker bee at the time of writing this article and cannot demo most of the site’s features (like BzzCampaigns) until we participate more.  This is by design, so casual ranters don’t abuse the forum.